The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Panel on SCs, STs fails to keep its schedule

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 02, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Panel on SCs, STs fails to keep its schedule

Bageshree S.

It has met only four times in eight years

There was a gap of five years between third and fourth meeting
Next meeting of the high-level committee is yet to be scheduled

Bangalore: The Karnataka Government set up a high-level vigilance committee in the year 2000 under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister to monitor implementation of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act with a mandate to meet in January and July every year to discuss policy matters on preventing atrocities.

But the committee has met no more than four times in the last eight years and in the most sporadic manner. The last meeting of the committee was held on December 12, 2006.

According to sources in the Social Welfare Department, the next meeting of the high-level committee is yet to be scheduled. According to Bharat Lal Meena, Secretary of the Department, the committee has now been reconstituted and the file sent to the Chief Minister’s office. The date of the meeting is yet to be decided.

Records indicate that the first few meetings were held with some regularity in the first year of the constitution of the committee. The first two meeting were held right on schedule, on May 22, 2000, and December 6, 2000. With one meeting skipped in between, the next one was held on November 7, 2001. Then came a yawning gap of five long years when not a single meeting was held. The fourth was held on December 12, 2006. And none has been held since.

Concerns voiced

The reports of the four meetings held make for an interesting reading for the priorities voiced by that the members, whose comprise Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe MLAs, MPs and Ministers. It is repeatedly emphasised by the members that there is a need for speedy disposal of cases filed under the Atrocities Act.

The last meeting held in 2006 draws attention to the Kambalapalli Dalit massacre case that sent shockwaves across India. The incident occurred on March 11, 2000, where seven Dalits were burnt alive. Referring to the acquittal of all the accused after a trial that lasted six years, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had sought a re-trail of the case. All the witnesses in the case had turned hostile. The re-trial was yet to make any concrete progress despite the government’s repeated assurance that it would be taken up.

President of Karnataka State Commission for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes Nehru C. Olekar told The Hindu that a meeting of the high-level committee was long overdue and the rate of conviction in atrocities cases, which stands at about one per cent in Karnataka, needed to be addressed by the committee on priority basis.

“In most cases, witnesses turn hostile out of fear or intimidation,” he said. The commission, in 2007, had recommended that the Government should provide security to witnesses.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka