The Maharashtra government on Monday informed the Bombay High Court that it plans to fill the vacant posts in the State Human Rights Commission within two months.
The statement was made before a Division Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni in a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Vaishnavi Gholave, 23, through advocate Vinod Sangvikar. The PIL mentions the Commission was constituted on March 6, 2001 and it consists of chairman, a judicial member, an expert member, one secretary and one special IGP.
“There have been no regular appointments made from July 2018 onwards. On April 27, 2021, the acting chairperson, the only adjudicating member retired,” it says. On May 25, 2021, Ms. Gholave filed a Right to Information query seeking details on the vacant posts.
On May 28, she received responses that “only 26 of the sanctioned 51 posts are filled, and the rest are vacant. All three adjudicatory members’ posts are lying vacant, and the post of Chairperson has been vacant for more than three years”.
The PIL says, “The Commission has 21,545 pending cases till March 2021 which is the highest in a decade and the inaction of the State government is only to be blamed for this sorry state of affairs. As per the information gathered, only 433 cases have been disposed of in this year due to non-availability of regular chairperson and expert member which led to the entire load being handled by a single Judicial member in addition to discharging administrative and other functions.”
