PANAJI
The State Commission for Women (SCM) appears to have been given stepmotherly treatment, with hundreds of women awaiting justice simply because the State government has failed to appoint the required members in the Commission.
The government had appointed Ranjita Pai as chairperson of the SCM on March 6, a post which had been vacant for a year, but has not appointed other members in the Commission since the last six months.
The Commission comprises the chairperson and seven members, of which one member includes a woman MLA, and hearings can only be conducted with the full strength of the commission.
According to sources, 322 cases are pending for hearing since 2020 and are yet to see the light of the day.
The SCM plays an important role in resolving cases of women in the State and these cases pertain to domestic violence, physical assault, sexual abuse, mental harassment etc.
There has been a rise in the number of women seeking justice from the women’s commission in the past few years, especially during the Covid lockdown and pandemic.
The Commission is expected to address the grievances of women, initiate counselling and work to resolve their issues, but the Commission only has a chairperson and no members.
In the recent assembly session, AAP MLA Cruz Silva had submitted a query regarding the women’s Commission before the House. In his reply, Women and Child Development Minister Vishwajit Rane had stated that the process to appoint other members to the SCM had been initiated.
The minister had mentioned that since there had been no appointment of any member on the Commission, no hearing could take place in the last six months.
When the previous SCM headed by then chairperson Vidya Gawade Satarkar had completed its tenure in 2022, hearings into 322 cases were in progress. However, since the Commission only has the chairperson and no members, it cannot go ahead with these cases, leaving hundreds of aggrieved women struggling for justice.
