Sushma, Jaitley oppose Cyriac Joseph as NHRC member

Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley today gave notes of dissent against government's proposal to make Cyriac Joseph, a retired Supreme Court judge, an NHRC member.

At a meeting of the selection panel for NHRC, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here, both the BJP leaders reportedly cited an intelligence report against Joseph to demand that another person be chosen in his place.

Other members of the panel include Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson P J Kurien.

Government is likely to go ahead with Joseph's candidature despite the dissent note from the two opposition leaders, sources said.

In the last meeting of the selection panel too, Joseph's name was proposed by the government but Swaraj and Jaitley referred to an adverse intelligence report against him and sought clarifications.

Both Jaitley and Swaraj have also maintained that retired police officials and civil servants should not be appointed as NHRC members as most cases of human rights violations are against officials from this fraternity. They had suggested that social workers, lawyers, journalists and others involved in human rights activities should be chosen instead.

Ignoring their objections, the government had gone ahead with the appointment of former NIA Chief S C Sinha as a member of NHRC in its meeting in March.

Joseph's name was earlier rejected for the post of TDSAT Chief on the basis of the same intelligence report.