Rs 70 lakh spent on judicial panels in 10 years with no great benefits

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Nearly Rs 70 lakh have been spent on four judicial commissions in the last ten years. The findings of two commissions were partially accepted, but considering the increase in custodial deaths in recent times, no lessons seem to have been learnt.

One of the judicial commissions, the Justice M A Nissar Commission on police firing in Kasargod in 2009, did not survive its full term, though nearly Rs 7 lakh was spent.

The information was revealed in an RTI reply furnished to M. T. Thomas, member of the state committee of the National Campaign for the Protection of RTI.

The fate of the fourth one, the Solar Commission for which over Rs 20 lakh has already been spent, is still uncertain.

The two panels that completed their work are: Justice R Rajendra Babu Commission that went into the nature of custody deaths after the death by torture of Udayakumar in 2006 and Justice K Ramakrishnan Commission that probed the police firing at Cheriyathura in Thiruvananthapuram on May 5, 2009.

The Cabinet, though it had placed an action-taken report in the Assembly in 2012, had disagreed with some of the conclusions and recommendations of the Ramakrishnan Commission.

The commission, for which Rs 35.7 lakh was spent, wanted the practice of providing compensation to the relatives of the deceased stopped. But this was rejected by the UDF government.

However, it agreed with proposals such as the establishment of a police station in the Cheriyathura-Beemapally area and protection to policemen who acted firm.

Based on the Rajendra Babu Commission, the LDF government in 2007 decided to re-investigate four custodial deaths that took place in 2006.