Team Herald
PANJIM: After a long wait, the Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) has finally got a chairman with the government appointing retired justice of High Court of Bombay at Goa U V Bakre to the chair.
The government had last month cleared the file for his appointment along with the proposal for appointing retired district judges Desmond D’Costa and Pramod Kamat as its members.
The Commission was without a head for nearly four years and defunct for last seven months, after its sole member A D Salkar retired in July 2019.
Earlier, retired Justice Prafulla Misra’s tenure as Chairman ended on March 3, 2016 after which member A D Salkar was appointed as acting chairman but for a short duration. His appointment to the acting Chairman’s post was thereafter revoked. The Commission’s second member J A Keny’s death in September 2018 left the Commission with just one member to handle the cases.
With A D Salkar’s retirement on July 27, 2019, the entire functioning came to a standstill leaving hearing into many important cases pending. The Commission would accept new complaints only till the inward section of the office. With the reconstitution of the Board, the fate of the complaints would be decided and most importantly, nearly 326 cases currently pending before it. The retirement age of the Chairman and members is 70 years.
The appointment of GHRC Chairman incidentally comes a week after High Court of Bombay at Goa directed the Commission to rehear 2016 BRICS summit food scam case.
The division bench of Justices Mahesh Sonak and Nutan Sardessai had last week directed the GHRC to rehear the case by giving a hearing to the Bicholim based Amoncar Classic Caterers that had moved the Court stating that they were not heard by the GHRC before submitting its report. The High Court while directing Amoncar Classic Caterers and petitioner Aires Rodrigues to appear before the GHRC on March 2, directed that proceedings be concluded within three months.