Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) will have no member from Wednesday as the tenure of the current acting chairman, Justice Bira Kishore Mishra, the only member available on the three-member panel, will end August 15. The panel has no members and a regular chairman for several years now.
The government has not appointed members to the commission. Even the post of registrar is lying vacant for many years now. Several members have acted as chairperson since the term of Justice RK Patra ended in November 2012. Justice Mishra worked as acting chairperson for two years. All three posts of the OHRC will remain vacant for the first time since its inception in 2003. It receives nearly 5,000 cases every year which works out to an average of 14/15 cases daily.
As per Human Rights Protection Act, 2003, the Governor appoints a person recommended by a committee comprising the Chief Minister, the Speaker, the minister in-charge of the department of home and the leader of the opposition in the assembly.
According to the Act, a retired judge of the Supreme Court or a Chief Justice of a High Court will be its chairman while the two other members of the panel will be HC judges or noted human rights activists or senior retired bureaucrats. The state government can also appoint Supreme Court judges hailing from other states as the chairman.
The authorities have shown no interest to appoint a chairman. Despite having so many bureaucrats and human rights activists in the state, the government is finding it difficult to appoint members, said rights activist Pradipta Kumar Nayak.
