Goemkarponn Desk
PANAJI: The Goa government has assured the High Court of Bombay at Goa that the Chairperson of Human Rights Commission will be appointed within 3 months from today.
The assurance from the govt came during hearing of the petition by prisoners housed at State Central Jail at Colvale.
The Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) has become non-functional after the term of its erstwhile chairperson ended in Feb 2023, with over 500 cases pending.
The state government has to start a fresh process to identify the new chairperson, who has to be a retired high court judge.
Justice Bakre tenure ended on February 26, on attaining the age of 70 years, while Judge D’Costa and Judge Kamat’s term of three years too ended on February 7 and 13 respectively.
During their tenure, the Commission settled many complaints of human rights violations and also took cognisance of media reports and admitted suo motu cases even as the Commission could not hear matters during the Covid-19 pandemic.
There are still 450-odd complaints mostly human rights violations, pending with the Commission.
Given the past experience when the government delayed the constitution of the Commission for almost a year, the Commission official in December last wrote to the State government about the term of the three members coming to an end and to expedite the process to constitute the new Commission.
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