The High Court on Friday ordered notice to the state government in a PIL seeking directions for the appointment to the vacant posts of chairperson and two members of Karnataka State Police Complaint Authority (SPCA).
The petitioner claimed that the post of chairperson is vacant from August 11, 2022 after Justice C R Kumaraswamy demitted office on completion of the term. A division bench headed by Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale granted three weeks’ time to the respondents to file their response.
The SPCA was established to deal with the complaints of police atrocities, highhandedness and misconduct. The petitioner, a city-based advocate Sudha Katwa, said that while the term of Justice Kumaraswamy, retired judge of the High Court, expired on August 11, 2022, the terms of K H Gopala Krishnegowda as the civil service member and Ekambaram Naidu as civil society member, expired on May 28, and December 28, 2022,
respectively.
“Thus, the appointment process should have been initiated much before such anticipated vacancy. The government did not initiate any appointment process,” the petition said.
The petitioner said the Supreme Court (Prakash Singh case) had given statutory rights to victims of police abuse to make a complaint to the SPCA and DPCA (district-level). Accordingly, the state government had appointed SPCA and DPCA in September 2012. The petitioner said that non-appointment of chairperson and members frustrate the Constitutional and legal rights of citizens and also against the mandate of the Supreme Court.
“There were no timely appointments of chairperson and members of the SPCA by the government and the citizens had to make several representations and recourse to the High Court for relief. Even on the last occasion, the government initiated the process of appointment of chairperson of SPCA only after the notice was issued by the court in the petition filed by this petitioner,” the petition said.
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