NHRC to get stay on Sadashiva panel vacated

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 23. To facilitate the early release of Mr. Rajkumar, the National Human Rights Commission is taking steps to get vacated the Karnataka High Court's stay on the functioning of the panel to probe alleged atrocities committed by the Special Task Force on tribals during their operations to nab the forest brigand, Veerappan, who is now holding the Kannada actor hostage.

The NHRC Chairperson, Mr. Justice J.S. Verma, told The Hinduthat the Advocate-General of Karnataka and a former Additional Solicitor-General of India had been asked to represent the Commission when the case was taken up on September 25 and plead for the vacation of the interim stay.

(One of the demands of Veerappan for the release of Rajkumar and three others is that the victims of the atrocities as identified by the Sadashiva committee, appointed by the NHRC, be paid adequate compensation and that, for this purpose, a corpus fund be created. The Governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have created a corpus fund. However, in view of the court stay, the committee could not proceed with its work).

Mr. Justice Verma said that, in view of the conflicting stands taken before the committee on the scope of the inquiry, the Commission earlier asked the committee to complete recording of the rival contentions but without refusing to record the evidence except when it was considered irrelevant to the subject matter.

He said the committee had been told that objections could be decided by the Commission on receiving the report from the committee together with the evidence recorded by it. Because of the stand taken by the Commission, there was no need to stay the proceedings of the committee as the final decision had to be taken only by the Commission.

Mr. Justice Verma said the kidnap episode could have been avoided, had the Karnataka Government heeded its advice last year that the 51 TADA detenus be permitted to come out on bail and allowed their cases to go on. The Commission took this decision because the detenus (12 of them women), had been languishing in jail for over five years.

He said ``at that time the Karnataka Government said it had no jurisdiction to intervene in the matter and ignored our views. But now when Veerappan demands their release, they act swiftly and the trial court grants them bail''. In a lighter vein, he said ``probably they think that Veerappan more has jurisdiction than we have in ordering their release''.

Attacks on Christians

Mr. Justice Verma said, the NHRC would shortly convene a meeting of senior officials of the Union and State Governments to draw an action plan to prevent recurrence of attacks on Christians and their institutions. The Commission's meeting on September 25 will discuss the next course of action. Mr. Justice Verma said the response of the Centre and the States to the Commission notice was rather slow.

However, he said except Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Bihar and Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Chandigarh, all States have sent their replies.

Reminders had been sent to the others to give details within a week of the steps taken by them.

Mr. Justice Verma said he had also asked the Secretary -General of the Commission, Mr. N. Gopalaswami, to prepare a note containing suggestions on action required to be taken by the States for prevention of atrocities against minorities.

Once this note was ready and responses where received from other States, the Commission would convene a meeting of the representatives of the Centre and State Governments to chalk out a plan of action not only to assuage the feelings of the minorities but also to infuse confidence in them.

Mr. Justice Verma said the visit by the Commission teams to make a spot enquiry into these incidents had a tremendous impact on the minorities, who felt insecure following the attacks.

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