The Times of India
June 25, 2006
'Time-bound tenure must for panels probing riots'
[ Sunday, June 25, 2006 11:45:28 pm TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
NEW DELHI: A National Integration Council panel, devising means of checking communal violence, wants inquiry commissions probing riots to have time-bound tenures with a maximum deadline of one year.
The panel also wants that an MLA or MP should poll a minimum of 50% of the total votes polled to be declared elected. It feels this will help check narrow the caste and creed-based appeal of a candidate and force him to reach out to a cross section of people, broadbasing an elected representative's social responsibilities.
Failure to secure 50% votes would entail a fresh voting. Chairman of the sub-group of NIC and minister of state for home, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, said the panel knows the recommendation was not easy to accept and required creation of a consensus. "But it is one solution to so many problems," he said.
The sub-group will finalise its recommendations at a meeting in Mumbai on July 6. It based the recommendations on a study of reports of 12 of a total of 68 important commissions that probed riots.
In a few other interesting recommendations, debated by the panel comprising Julio Rebeiro, Moosa Raza (both retired police officers), Leela Seth, Kuldeep Singh (both retired justices) and scholar Asghar Ali Engineer, include setting up of special courts to try cases of communal riots and their time-bound disposal.
Jaiswal said that states should be provided necessary infrastructure to bring these special courts into existence. He said the long pendency in courtsemboldens the perpetrators. It gives them a feeling that they can get away with communal crimes even as the victims lose faith in getting justice.
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