Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Dec 9: Many are the human rights, one of which being the right to be heard at the appointed hour in a court. However, the Human Rights Commission here, the authority setting wrongs right, is failing to measure up to complainants’ expectations.
That the functioning of the commission here leaves much to be desired is common knowledge. A case in point was the absence of the acting chairperson of the commission, BK Misra, at the scheduled hearing Tuesday.
Those who turned up at the commission office included people from far and near. The court hearings got delayed as the chairperson had not turned up at 11am when the proceedings were to start. Over an hour later, the scenario remained the same. Usually the hearings run till 2pm wherein around 10 cases are heard. Ironically, on the day before World Human Rights Day, petitioners were denied their right to be heard and given justice on time.
It so happened that the commission delayed court hearings by several hours and then disposed of quite a few complaints in a hurry — in half an hour’s time. Later, explanation came that officials were busy most of the day with functions organised in the city ahead of World Human Rights Day.
Normally, the court hearings are done in the presence of the acting chairperson and other members, and these are also attended by law students. However, nothing moved until about the last minute Tuesday.
When Orissa POST asked a senior official Vijay Kumar Singh about the status of the hearing Tuesday, he said there was some uncertainty as the acting chairperson was attending a programme being organised at the Red Cross Society on human rights. He was not sure whether the hearing will be held or not, or whether the petitioners needed to wait or go away. If so, why called in complainants for the hearing, he was asked, but there was no reply.
At the reception, Haramohan Kissan, a complainant who came from Sambalpur, was waiting for two hours when his hearing was scheduled. He had come with his sister whose land was grabbed by a relative.
He said the village cops and tehsildar backed her relatives. His petition was registered with the commission in October last, and this was his third visit to the city. Every time he came, he returned with no result other than getting a new date for the hearing.
“Each visit cost us around `1,000. If they have heard my case at the scheduled time, I could have saved the money I lost in repeated travels,” said Kissan.
Sitting alone in another corner was a father wearing dhoti-kurta and carrying a jute bag in which the clothes he kept were sticking out. His petition said his widowed daughter was being stalked by someone who threatened to kill her after she spurned his marriage proposal. He left the place later in the day, and the chairperson was still busy elsewhere.
A teacher, who knocked at the commission’s door after she was thrown out by the district higher education department for some reason, also appeared dejected. Accompanied by her husband, she said the hearings are sometimes called off in a huff. “I’m afraid they will cancel our hearing today again. They keep giving us dates one after another,” she said.
Later, an official informed Orissa POST that the hearing started by 1:15pm and within half an hour all the cases were heard. “On Human Rights Day Wednesday, we will be having a big programme at the Jaydev Bhavan. It was the preparations that took our time today,” the official explained.
