BJP leader as NHRC member: Centre unsure, petition in SC

OVER A month after a high-level committee (HLC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also comprising Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, cleared his name for appointment as member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the appointment of BJP vice president Avinash Rai Khanna to the post is still stuck.

“Questions have been raised about the suitability, legality and desirability of appointing him (Khanna) to the post. Everything will become clear soon,” said a government source. The opposition Congress and other political parties have threatened to raise the matter in the ongoing Session of Parliament if the appointment is finalised.

Meanwhile, a young student of Noida has moved the Supreme Court, challenging the validity of the recommendation by the HLC to appoint Khanna to the post. The petitioner, Anupriya Nagori, has asserted that the “decision making process” as well as the “recommendation” were in violation of the express statutory prohibition contained in Section 24(3)oftheprotectionofhuman Rights Act, 1993, and Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

She has said that Khanna’s appointment is barred by Section 24(3) of the Act since anybody who has remained member of a state human rights commission Khanna was a member of the Punjab State Human Rights Commission a few years ago — can’t be appointed to any government post again.

Sources in the government also told The Indian Express that while the government was keen to announce the appointment at the earliest, concerns within the Union Home Ministry — Home Minister Rajnath Singh is also a member of the selection committee — that the appointment could be in contravention of the Paris Principles as also some sections of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, has forced the government to examine the appointment afresh.

Paris Principle, a set of guidelines adopted by all Un-member nations that deal with the issue of independence and functioning of national national human rights institutions (NHRIS), were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993.

Sources said the MHA was also mulling seeking a legal opinion from either the Attorney General or the Solicitor General on the issue of whether Khanna’s appointment could be in violation of the Act or the Paris Principles.

Senior functionaries in the MHA are also carefully studying the Principles as well as the various international conventions and charters on human rights to which India is a signatory to assess the legality of the recommendation.

Khanna is the first active politician to have been cleared for the crucial post, which has remained vacant for over two years now. The Indian Express had first reported the move last month.

In his explanation on the issue, Azad, who didn’t object to the move in the meeting, had claimed that the fact that Khanna was a BJP office-bearer was “hidden”.

“We were unfortunately not kept in the loop, that he is an office-bearer of the BJP,” Azad claimed to The Indian Express after the report was published. Asserting that he was misled, he had also said, “We were not told that he is the (BJP) vice-president. We don’t keep track of who is the office-bearer of which political party .... We are given the bio-data, and he fell in the social (workers) category.”

As BJP vice president, Khanna was incidentally BJP in-charge of Jammu & Kashmir — Azad’s home-state — and also a member of the Rajya Sabha till April this year, where Azad is Leader of the Opposition.

The chairperson and members of the NHRC are selected by a high-level committee headed by the Prime Minister, and comprising the Lok Sabha Speaker, Union Home Minister, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

PUNJAB POLLS

Avinash Rai Khanna