NHRC Chairman Kedarnath Upadhyaya and members Ram Nagina Singh, Gauri Pradhan, Leela Pathak and KB Rokaya retired after completing their six years terms Sunday.
This comes in the wake of key positions falling vacant in other constitutional bodies as major political parties have failed to agree on sharing posts.
Outgoing NHRC top officials on Sunday urged the government to make appointments at the commission at the earliest stating that the incidents of human rights violation are continuing and the peace process has yet to reach to its logical end.
According to rights activists, with the retirement of NHRC chairman and its all four members, the commission will not be able to take any decision on cases of rights violation.
"Monday onward, the commission can only investigate cases of rights violation but cannot take any decision," rights activist Subodh Raj Pyakurel told Republica, adding, "It is very sad to see key positions falling vacant at the country supreme human rights watchdog body."
He blamed the UCPN (Maoist) among others for the situation.
"The UCPN (Maoist) turned indifferent toward the issue of appointment thinking that its there could be public vetting of its election candidates if there were [full shape] NHRC," he stated.
Pyakurel argued that the present government might have not shown interest in the issue of appointments at the commission so it will not have to give clarifications to the NHRC on the non-implementation of NHRC recommendations after the top positions fall vacant.
He accused Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML of not giving priority to fill NHRC vacancies.
"Outgoing NHRC chairman and its members are also responsible for this as they did not appoint a secretary," said Pyakurel, adding, "At least they could have appointed a permanent secretary before their retirement."
The outgoing officials have delegated their authority to the acting secretary Bed Prasad Bhattarai on Sunday itself.
Addressing press conference organized at NHRC head office in Lalitpur on Sunday, outgoing spokesperson Gauri Pradhan said that the government did not respond to their request regarding appointment of top officials.
"We had sent a letter to the office of the president and its carbon copy to the government two months ago but there was no response," added Pradhan.
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