Quasi-judicial bodies in West Bengal have been in limbo for years

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday announced appointments to key posts of West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC), West Bengal Information Commission (WBIC) and Lokayukta.

While former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya will be the chairman of WBHRC and Justice (Retd) Madhumita Mitra has been nominated as member of WBHRC. Retired Calcutta High Court judge Asim Kumar Roy has been re-designated as the Lokayukta of the state. The names of retired IPS officer Virendra and retired IAS officer Naveen Prakash have been proposed for the post of Information Commissioner in the West Bengal Information Commission.

While there have been issues between the state government and West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar over appointments to key posts of quasi-judicial bodies, most importantly, these commissions have been hanging in limbo for years. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Monday decided to skip the meeting to be held at the state secretariat where decisions on key appointments were considered.

‘slow pace’

Right-wing activists and researchers have often questioned the slow pace of work of these bodies and tend to avoid politically and socially sensitive issues. The tenure of former WBHRC chairman Justice (Retd) Girish Chandra Gupta ended in December 2021 and since then the commission has been functioning without any chairman. He was not the chairman of WBHRC for almost three years after retired Supreme Court judge Ashok Kumar Ganguly resigned in 2014.

In recent days, the WBHRC has paid no heed to the Bogatui violence in Birbhum, which claimed nine lives on March 21. The WBHRC also did not take note of the recent incidents of sexual assault on women, especially minors, where the Calcutta High Court intervened and post-poll violence in the state following the 2021 assembly elections. The National Human Rights Commission intervened in both the aftermath of the violence and the violence in Bogatui. The WBHRC website states that the commission has taken cognizance of several cases related to custodial deaths in the state.

When it comes to the Lokayukta of the state, the track record has not been better either. West Bengal passed the Lokayukta Act in 2003, and the first Lokayukta was appointed in 2006. After Samaresh Banerjee’s term ended in 2009, a new Lokayukta was appointed in 2019 after a long gap of ten years. A Right to Information (RTI) application filed in 2021 by socio-legal researcher and activist Vishwanath Goswami revealed that the Lokayukta did not complete a single inquiry during his tenure. Justice Ashim Roy has been re-nominated as Lokayukta for the second time.

poor settlement rate

The West Bengal Information Commission was one of the first information commissions set up by any state government. Since its inception in 2005, WBIC has been manned by bureaucrats and retired police officers. The Chief Minister said on Monday that there is a provision to nominate people from other sections of the society in the commission, but the state government has not been able to find a suitable person.

Mr. Goswami also pointed out that the settlement rate of full bench of WBIC has been “negligible” as compared to other State Information Commissions and Central Information Commissions. “The WBIC website shows that 26 cases were disposed of in February 2022. The CIC has an average settlement rate of 3,500 annually for every Information Commissioner,” he said. Mr. Goswami, who has been monitoring the functioning of quasi-judicial bodies for the past several years, said that “people do not have the confidence to approach them because of the opaque functioning of these bodies”.

He said, “The unfortunate thing is that these quasi-judicial bodies which have the legal powers to strengthen democracy and fix accountability, deliberately avoid politically sensitive issues which may have a bearing on the state government, ” They said.