Efforts by two successive heads of the Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission to ensure that judicial powers of the commission are restored have gone in vain, and the post of chairperson has remained downgraded for two years. Earlier, the commission had civil court status and the chairperson the status of a High Court judge, with Cabinet rank. Now the chairperson’s status is that of a Minister of State.
The government’s failure to restore judicial status to the chairperson has affected the functioning of the commission, says chairperson N. Shankarappa. “In a way, the commission has now become toothless.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party government withdrew the judicial status accorded to the chairperson in March 2011 when C.S. Dwarakanath was heading the body. Mr. Dwarakanath challenged the move in the Karnataka High Court, which stayed the government order. However, the judicial powers extended to commission were withdrawn when Mr. Dwarakanath demitted office. According to Mr. Dwarakanath, the powers of the chairperson were transferred to the member-secretary.
Altering the position to that of a Minister, many facilities were taken back; his crime was the alleged verbal attack on the Sangh Parivar.
Mr. Shankarappa, who resigned from the Legislative Council to make way for the former Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda to enter the Upper House, occupied the post vacated by Mr. Dwarakanath in October 2011. But things did not change even after he took over. “My pleas to Mr. Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar to restore judicial status failed to yield any result,” Mr. Shankarappa told The Hindu .
Pinning his hopes on the new Chief Minister, he said Siddaramaiah had all the information on the state of affairs of the commission. It was he who allocated Rs. 2 crore for conducting the caste based census when he was Deputy Chief Minister in the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government. “I will meet the Chief Minister along with commission members and seek support for the effective functioning of the commission”, he said.
The government’s stand on the issue had affected the functioning of commission to a larger extent. Mr. Shankarappa said that he has faced a plethora of problems after becoming chairperson. After prolonged attempts members were appointed in June 2012. he said.
But despite inadequacies, Mr. Shankarappa said that he wanted to take up the long-pending ambitious projects of caste census in the State and anthropological documentation of backward communities.
No caste-based census had been conducted after Independence. The last one was conducted in 1931. The Union government had released Rs. 7 crore of the Rs. 21 crore allocated and State government Rs. 1 crore in 2004-05. The Karnataka High Court had directed the government to draw up a calendar of events, but despite that there was no progress. “It is difficult to conduct survey of the kind without the support of the government”, he noted.
Meanwhile, the commission is all set to submit its report on the status of six backward class communities to the government shortly.
