M A I N   N E W S

NHRC issues notices to DC, police officers
From K.G. Dutt
Tribune News Service

KARNAL, Dec 16 — The National Human Rights Commission has issued notices to the Karnal Deputy Commissioner, Mr Devender Singh, the district police chief, Mr A.S. Ahlawat, Mr K.K. Rao, DSP, Karnal, and Mr Rattan Singh, DSP (Assandh), to appear before the Commission in person on January 3, 2001.

The notices has been issued on a complaint by Mr Tejinder Pal Mann, former Minister for Technical Education during the regime of Mr Bhajan Lal, who has represented to the commission against his and his family members constant harassment by the state government and violation of their human rights because of political vendetta.

The commission at its meeting held on December 13, which was chaired by Justice J.S. Verma, former Chief Justice of India, maintained that the “series of transactions indicating a course of action by the authorities concerned prima facie do not rule out the likelihood of a systematic course adopted for the harassment of the petitioner”.

The commission’s order states, “We make it clear that consideration of the merits of the matters which may be pending in any court of law are excluded from our consideration”.

However, it said “if systematic series of transactions against the petitioner was true it would be a serious violation of the petitioners human rights and abuse of authority”. The commission, therefore, felt it necessary to examine this aspect. The meeting which was also attended by Justice K. Ramaswamy, Justice Sujata V. Manohar, Mr Sudarshan Aggarwal and Mr Virender Dyal (all members), decided to serve notices after hearing Mr Mann.

The commission, it is reported, rarely gives personal hearings. Although Mr Mann has implicated 11 officials of the Haryana Government including the Chief Secretary, the commission chose to serve notices only on four senior officials at this state. The commission said the question of issuing notices to other respondents named in the petition would be considered subsequently.