The Goa Government must take immediate steps in expediting the process of selecting the next Chairman and members of the Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) as the term of the current Commission headed by Justice P.K Misra is scheduled to end on 3rd of March.
There should be no attempt to keep the Goa Human Rights Commission dysfunctional. With the increasing number of human right violations being witnessed there would be an undesirable vacuum without the GHRC in place.
Section 27 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 mandates that the investigative wing of the Commission should be headed by an officer not below the rank of IGP. The government is yet to comply with this requirement of law.
This Government’s poor track record of constituting the Constitutional authorities is there for all to see. The State was without a State Information Commission for over three years and is still without a Lokayukta. Now there is apprehension that from next month Goa may possibly be without a State Human Rights Commission too.
