A Full Bench (comprising three judges) of the Madras High Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on a reference made to it by a Division Bench in July 2017 for answering whether the reports of the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) were merely recommendatory in nature or if they would be binding upon the State government.
Justices S. Vaidyanathan, V. Parthiban and M. Sundar deferred their judgment after hearing marathon arguments advanced by a battery of lawyers since February 17 this year. Over 40 advocates made their submissions before the Bench.
Additional Solicitor General R. Shankaranarayanan, Additional Advocate General Narmadha Sampath, Central Government standing counsel M.P. Jaisha and advocate R. Srinivas represented the Centre, the State government, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the SHRC, respectively, before the Full Bench and placed their submissions.
Amicus Curiae B. Vijay wound up the arguments by bringing to the notice of the judges that a previous Full Bench comprising Justices T.S. Sivagnanam, V. Bhavani Subbaroyan and M. Dhandapani had posed five significant questions, related to the issue, to the State government on June 17, 2019 and obtained written replies to them on July 10, 2019.
Cumbersome procedure
Mr. Vijay told the court that the State was actually following a cumbersome procedure that might end up whittling down the effect of the SHRC reports.
Stating that it had received 101 recommendations from the SHRC in the last five years with respect to the Home department, the government said that 40 of those recommendations were accepted and 35 were under consideration. The recommendations made by SHRC in 26 other cases had been stayed by the High Court, it added.
