Bengaluru: The provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act mandate that the the State-level Vigilance and Monitoring Committee (SVMC), a creation of the Act, hold biannual meetings. The SVMC has failed to do so since 1995, effectively defeating the purpose of the committee and the Act and failing the dalit community.

A report by the Committee for Monitoring and Strengthening Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Karnataka (CMASK) indicates that the State has held only four meetings though it was supposed to have held 41 meetings in the last two decades to fulfill the constitutional mandate towards the SCs and STs under the Act. This translates to only 9.76 per cent adherence to the constitutional mandate.

The meetings are to be held in January and July every year. Surprisingly though, after the rules were notified on March 31, 1995, the first meeting of the SVMC was held only on March 11, 2000. The subsequent meetings were held in December 2006, September 2010 and November 2013, which does not even close to the required mandate.

Rating the 12 Chief Ministers of the State since 1995 on the basis of number of SVMC meetings held during their regime, the report assigned “C” grade to H.D. Kumaraswamy for holding one meeting of the mandatory three during his tenure. All other Chief Ministers, including the incumbent Mr. Siddaramaiah, have been given “F” grade.