SHILLONG: The State Government has written to the Chief Justice of Meghalaya High Court Justice PC Pant to finalise a panel of names for the appointment of Chairperson and other members for the proposed Meghalaya Human Rights Commission.
An official source said on Saturday that the Political Department has written to the Chief Justice to prepare the panel of names for the formation of a full-fledged Commission.
A series of cases of human rights violations have been reported especially from Garo Hills in the past.
In the absence of the state’s own humans rights body, cases involving human rights violations are either probed by the magistrates or senior officials whose reports are often shoddy compelling the Government to hand over the controversial cases to the judicial inquiry commissions.
Despite two custodial deaths in Garo Hills, killing of a woman in Chokpot by militants and assault of 12 women in Tura, the NHRC based in Delhi has failed to order any probe and neither its Special Rapporteur for the North East, Anil Pradhan took up these cases as according to him he was not authorized by NHRC to probe these case. The Garo Students Union recently criticized both NHRC and Pradhan for their failure to probe the cases of human rights violations in Garo Hills.
It was in early part of this year that the State Cabinet gave the nod for the formation of the Meghalaya Human Rights Commission, and subsequently, the Government tabled the Meghalaya Human Rights Commission (Salaries and Allowances and other Terms and Conditions of Service of the Members) Rules, 2014 in the Assembly Budget Session held in March.