Hearing a petition seeking directions for the expeditious filling up of vacancies in the National Commission For Minorities, the Delhi High Court today rapped the Central Government for an affidavit filed by it in the matter - which the court found to effectively be stating that "...the provisions don't require us to do it in a timeline."
In the affidavit filed before the Court, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India has stated that the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 did not set out any timeline for the appointment of its members, however, due care and caution was being exercised for the appointments.
Noting that it was an admitted position that five out of six positions were vacant, the Court told the Centre that the vacancies had to be filled up expeditiously and within a timeline.
The court said, "The mere fact that persons of eminence, ability and integrity have to appointed, does not mean that the said appointments would not be expeditiously made."
The court stated that the vacancies in the National Commission for Minorities for the Chairman, and members from Buddhist, Christian, Parsi, Sikh and Jain communities ought to be expeditiously filled by the Central government, in a time-bound manner.
The court of Justice Prathiba Singh, directed the centre to again file an affidavit within a week, on the status of specific appointments along with timelines, pointing out that its current affidavit was "completely unsatisfactory" and that she was "pretty surprised", the Court at how the affidavit had even made it past the lawyers.
Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma appearing for the centre then told the court that they would file a another affidavit and agreed that appointments have to be made adhering to timelines, yet, he added that despite having only one member, the Commission was functioning efficiently and had disposed of 815 out of 1279 complaints. Objecting, the counsel for the petitioner said that the National Commisson for Minorities cannot function as a one-man body, and that the Commission could not be said to be "functional" unless representation was not given to all communities
