Events & Personalities
Minorities’ woes
Though the Maharashtra government was one of the first to set up a minorities commission in March 1992 after the union government passed a law leading up to the setting up of the National Commission for Minorities, it has never ensured its effective functioning. With 2.2 crore or 20 percent of the population belonging to minorities, half of whom are Muslims, the government kept the Commission without a chairman for over a year between 2011 and 2012, reported The Indian Express (IE) on July 19, 2013.
The Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, housed in a 4,000-sq ft office in a by-lane near Victoria Terminus, was revived in August 2012 with Munaf Hakim appointed chairman. He joined Bombay Parsi Punchayet chairman Dinshaw Mehta, who has been on the Commission since 2009. However, there are nine unfilled vacancies for members. Mehta and Hakim have been able to hold only eight hearings in the past year, mentions IE, though Hakim says: "Since I took over in August last, we have received 4,351 complaints and addressed 1,561. With only two of us, addressing all complaints is a difficult task.” Mehta, however, in response to Parsiana’s query over the telephone said that the Commission is functioning satisfactorily.
The Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, housed in a 4,000-sq ft office in a by-lane near Victoria Terminus, was revived in August 2012 with Munaf Hakim appointed chairman. He joined Bombay Parsi Punchayet chairman Dinshaw Mehta, who has been on the Commission since 2009. However, there are nine unfilled vacancies for members. Mehta and Hakim have been able to hold only eight hearings in the past year, mentions IE, though Hakim says: "Since I took over in August last, we have received 4,351 complaints and addressed 1,561. With only two of us, addressing all complaints is a difficult task.” Mehta, however, in response to Parsiana’s query over the telephone said that the Commission is functioning satisfactorily.
Dinshaw Mehta: working for minorities
The Commission faces a number of problems: the state is not keen on a full bench; it has dissolved district level committees helping the Commission; government officials do not heed summons from the Commission; its recommendations are not taken seriously by the government. To add to this, unlike the National Commission which has expert members, state appointments are political, notes IE. Former members complained that the state systematically broke down the mechanism by which the Commission functioned at the district level by dissolving committees set up there so that complainants do not have to travel all the way to Bombay for redress.
According to Hakim, "There was a problem with government officials not showing up for hearings. We had been demanding since 2000 the Commission be given powers of a civil court to issue summons. The demand was accepted by the state in 2012,” reported IE.
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