Fill up NHRC vacancies by April 30, Supreme Court tells Centre

New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre to fill by April 30 two posts of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) members.

A division bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice S.K. Kaul asked the government to fill up these two posts lying vacant for nearly two-and-half years.

During hearing of the case, Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand appeared for the Centre and said there was difficulty in appointing NHRC members due to ongoing elections in five states.

In response, the bench said the process of appointments should be completed by April 30.

In December last, the court had expressed displeasure over the inordinate delay in the appointment of NHRC members. 

The apex court's direction came during the hearing of a public interest litigation filed by lawyer Radhakanta Tripathy for court intervention to fill up the vacancies.

The petitioner contended that the vacancies severely hampered the NHRC functioning as a single-member bench was unable to shoulder the burden of huge volume of cases pending before the rights body.