Rules being ‘twisted’ to get retd IAS officer as child commission head

After information commissions, it is the turn of child right commissions to turn into parking lots for retired bureaucrats.

Updated on: Jun 21, 2012, 01:12:55 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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After information commissions, it is the turn of child right commissions to turn into parking lots for retired bureaucrats. And rules prescribing minimum eligibility conditions for appointment are being diluted. Delhi has taken the lead this while looking for a chairperson of Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR).

As per documents accessed under RTI Act by Raj Mangal Prasad of NGO Pratidhi, the Delhi government wants rules to be changed apparently to accommodate a retired bureaucrat Arun Mathur.

“It is felt that additional inputs may be required for the selection of the chairperson, keeping in view the nature of duties performed by the chairperson,” said an internal file noting of Delhi’s women and child development department.

The post of the chairperson had fallen vacant in 2011 after Amod Kanth, former IPS officer and head of child empowerment NGO Prayas, retired. Since then the government has appointed four new members to the commission but not the chairperson.

The Delhi High Court has already prescribed conditions for appointment of chairperson and members of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). According to its rules, the chairperson should have a minimum of 15 years of experience in the field of child rights or child welfare. Its members must have a minimum experience of 10 years. Delhi government prescribed to these guidelines while appointing DCPCR’s four members, reveals the RTI reply.

But now it wants to dilute these rules. The file noting, however, does not mention the kind of changes being worked out in eligibility criteria. But sources did say that the requirement of 15 years of experience is being diluted to appoint a retired bureaucrat. And, the reason being given is that the chairperson has to run the commission and therefore, should have administrative abilities. “It works well for an IAS officer,” the source added.

But the Union women and child development ministry, had a different outlook while appointing Shantha Sinha, a Magsasay award-winning child rights activist and academician, as the chairperson of NCPCR. “A chairperson is needed for overall guidance. There is a secretary for administrative matters,” a Central government official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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