The Centre today told the Delhi High Court that five out of the seven vacant posts in the National Commission for Minorities have been filled after a petition had alleged government inaction.
The Centre made the submission before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal which was hearing a plea seeking a time frame for filling up the vacancies in the minorities panel.
Central government standing counsel Anurag Ahluwalia told the court that the chairperson, vice chairperson and three members of the commission had been appointed recently.
Taking note of the government's submission, the bench disposed of the petition.
It directed the government to ensure that the remaining two posts were also filled expeditiously.
The PIL, filed by lawyer Radhakanta Tripathy, had said "the inaction of the government in not appointing the members is arbitrary and unreasonable" and that it "frustrates" the spirit of the Constitution.
The first statutory National Commission for Minorities (NCM) was set up in 1993 and by a gazette notification, five religious communities - Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Zoroastrians - were notified as minorities, it had said.
"In the absence of provisions of a time limit to fill up the vacancies in the commission, the appointment process takes a long time and the existence of a full-fledged commission and its functioning gets severely affected," the plea had said.
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