'NCM findings should be binding like courts'

Delivering the second NCM lecture on the Minorities and the Indian Constitution, Justice Sachar said NCM must be given constitutional status so that its decisions would become binding on the states and on the central departments.

"The proposal to give more teeth to the National Commission for Minorities has been pending for a long time. Governments who came to power at the centre always had an inward mechanism to resist it," he said.

"All the important decisions made by the Commission have been ignored by the states, since it is not mandatory for them to implement those decisions. As we know, justice delayed is justice denied," he added.

National Commission for Minorities chairperson Mohammad Shafi Quereshi echoed Sachar's views saying that the current system of delivering redressals to minority issues through concerned departments is proving to be ineffective.

"Setting up an independent investigating system inside the commission on par with the NHRC and National Commission for Scheduled Castes would go some way to remedy the situation," he said. "Confirming constitutional status on the Commission with powers of an independent investigator would help safeguard minority rights."

DH News Service