A recent report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, which collated RTI replies from various SPCAs, said that only a small portion of complaints are being accepted for inquiry. This underlines the SPCA’s 'restrictive approach' towards fulfilling its mandate as directed by the Supreme Court.
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A recent report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), which collated RTI replies from various SPCAs, has highlighted that such an action by the Gujarat SPCA was “surprising, given that its mandate includes broad terms like ‘misuse of power’ or ‘dereliction of duty’ without specifying actions or complaints to be covered by it.” “Yet, only a small portion of complaints are being accepted for inquiry,” said the report titled ‘Police Complaints Authorities in India – Status Gaps Challenges’.
It underlined that the SPCA’s action indicates “a restrictive approach” towards fulfilling its mandate as directed by the Supreme Court.
The report underlines that in a significant departure from the Supreme Court’s order, the amended Act allowed the state government “complete control over the selection and appointment process” of the SPCA by ensuring that two of its three members “are serving ex-officio”; “no set procedure for the selection of the chairperson”; and that there is no transparent process to nominate the third member, a person of eminence.
In complete violation of the Supreme Court order, the Gujarat SPCA is also led by a retired Indian Administrative Service officer (Balwant Singh).
The CHRI report deduced from the RTI replies of Gujarat SPCA that even the mandate of the authority “is also unclear”.
This is also because the amended Act “failed to define” what “serious misconduct, dereliction of duty, misuse of powers” are, leaving the SPCA in a grey area as to which complaints to consider it to be within its jurisdiction.
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