Justice Chauhan to head Police Complaint Authority

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

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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.