The divisional-level hearing of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) here has failed to serve its purpose.
The two-member bench of the NCPCR, comprising R.G. Anand and Pragna Parande, that was supposed to sit at the district administrative complex here on Friday and hear the cases of child rights violations from Hyderabad Karnataka abruptly ended the hearing and left for Hyderabad, without even announcing their departure.
Their travel programme, circulated earlier, showed that they would leave Kalaburagi by 4 p.m. on Friday for Hyderabad but the hearing was planned till 5 p.m. on the same day.
Over 867 complaints were received from Bidar, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Raichur, Koppal and Ballari, and the bench heard only 150 of them.
It was more like the Chief Minister’s Janata Darshan than like a hearing of a statuary body. Chaos, disorder, and confusion continued to persist throughout the hearing. It was later announced that the NCPCR would follow up the rest of the cases from Delhi.
“Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s Janata Darshan is far better as he sat from morning till 11 p.m. and heard the grievances. He solved many problems on the spot. Here, after sitting for hours, we did not know what was happening,” a person from Raichur said.
The NCPCR members arrived at 10 a.m. Their inaugural address, speeches, and introduction of NCPCR and its activities went on for around one-and-a-half hours. The actual hearing started at 11.30 a.m.
The Bench heard 150 cases in less than 3 hours – till 2.15 p.m. to be specific – giving around 1.2 minutes for a case on an average. By 2.15 p.m., the lunch break was announced and both the members did not return when the hearing resumed.
Their representative later announced that they had left as they had to take a flight from Hyderabad.
“NCPCR could have redressed the complaints from Delhi itself, instead of doing this. It unnecessarily triggered hopes among people,” Vittal Chikani, Regional Coordinator of Samajika Parivarthana Janandolana, told The Hindu .
Venkatesh Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Kalaburagi, the host district, had started making elaborative arrangements a week ahead to make the hearing successful. He had also notified the Deputy Commissioners (DC), Chief Executive Officers (CEO), Superintendents of Police (SP), and other important functionaries in the six districts to be present in the meeting. However, most of them were absent.
