Suryap

Bhubaneswar: Demanding immediate filling up of vacant chairperson post of the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC), human rights activists on Monday sat on dharna in front of Raj Bhavan on Monday.

Under the banner of the 'Manabadhikar Karmi and Sangathan Samuha', human rights activists staged the protest and demanded that a retired High Court judge should be appointed chairperson of the Commission as per the law. They claimed that more than 15,000 human rights violation cases are pending before the OHRC following the vacancies of chairperson and members.

A committee under chairmanship of CM Naveen Patnaik appoints OHRC chairperson and members. However, as the meeting of the committee has not been held for long time, the vacancies could not be filled up at the Commission.

They also submitted a memorandum to Governor Ganeshi Lal.

"For quite long time, the OHRC has become non-functional as members and Chairperson posts are vacant. Neither new cases could be taken up nor pending cases are being heard," said Chandranath Dani, convener of the association.

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