Ramkrishan Upadhyay
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 6
After a gap of over a year and a half, the Chandigarh Administration today reconstituted the Police Compliant Authority. Sources said Punjab Governor and UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore approved the name of Justice Mahavir Singh Chauhan (retd) as the Chairman of the authority while former Rajasthan DGP AS Gill has been appointed the member of the authority.
The authority was lying non-functional for over 19 months. The authority became headless after the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the appointment of Pradip Mehra, former UT Adviser, as Chairman of the authority in July 2015, terming the appointment against rules. Since then, the PCA had been lying defunct.
The Administration had appointed Mehra as the Chairman on November 8, 2013.
Mehra’s appointment was challenged in the High Court by advocate HC Arora on the grounds that it was against the guidelines set by the Supreme Court.
Arora said the state-level PCA should be headed by a retired High Court or Supreme Court Judge.
The court quashed the notification issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on March 23, 2010, laying down the terms and conditions for the appointment of the PCA chairperson and also the notification issued by the Chandigarh Administration on November 8, 2013, for Mehra’s appointment as the PCA chairperson.
The Administration requested the Punjab and Haryana High Court to send a panel of retired judges. The Administration constituted a panel in August 2010 to probe allegations of serious misconduct and serious abuse of the authority by the police. So far, the PCA has disposed of over 600 complaints. In around 100 cases, policemen of different ranks have been found guilty of misconduct.