Justice Cyriac Joseph, Member, National Human Rights Commission has taken charge as the Acting Chairperson of the NHRC, the Commission today said.
Joseph's appointment follows after justice (retired) K G Balakrishnan completed his tenure on May 11.
Joseph, a former judge of the Supreme Court of India had joined the Commission as a Member on May 27 in 2013.
"As authorised by the President of India, Justice Joseph will continue to hold the position, until the appointment of a new Chairperson in the NHRC in place of Justice K G Balakrishnan who completed his tenure on May 11," an official statement said today.
During his nearly five years of chairmanship of the Commission from June 7, 2010 to May 11, 2015, justice Balakrishnan was credited with several new initiatives towards promotion and protection of human rights in the country and laid a lot of emphasis on increasing the outreach of the Commission to build awareness about human rights.
Starting of 'Open Hearings' of the complaints on the problems of Scheduled Castes and atrocities against them in different states of the country was one of his major initiatives, among several others.
He also restarted the practice of NHRC's 'Camp Sittings' in different states to dispose of pending cases in the presence of government authorities. Not only this, he also set up a committee to study and classify offences which could be heard by human rights courts.
During his tenure, the Commission registered a record number of 4,93,445 cases, which also included 599 suo motu cognisance and disposed of 4,64,079 cases by recommending an amount of Rs 68,97,70,172 as monetary relief in 2,242 cases.
