The little-known commission that granted a former state senator, Guy Velella, and two of his associates early release from Rikers Island may have violated state law when it voted, a City Council committee charged yesterday.

If the commission did violate the law, the decision should be overturned and the men could be sent back to jail, members of the committee said.

The chairwoman of the committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services said there was evidence that only two of the four members of the Local Conditional Release Commission were present when the decision to release Velella was made. A third member, she said, was called after the meeting to consent.

“We believe that there are likely grounds for either the commission or the court to annul the release of these gentlemen,” Council Member Yvette Clark said during the hearing.

The City Council staff report presented at the meeting also found that Velella’s application may have been approved before the mandatory 60-day waiting period since his previous review. There was also no public notice of the meeting and no minutes taken, both violations of open meeting laws.

The release of Velella, a Republican of the Bronx who pleaded guilty to a charge of bribery, has garnered tremendous public attention. Mayor Bloomberg announced last week the resignation of all four members of the commission, and the city Department of Investigation and the Manhattan district attorney jumped in to conduct probes.

The council announced plans Thursday to subpoena the current and former members of the commission, but the council speaker, Gifford Miller, withdrew the subpoenas at the request of the DA’s office and the investigations department, which said having the four commissioners testify before the council could immunize them from prosecution.

Mr. Miller, a Democrat of Manhattan, said yesterday: “The only way to lay aside suspicions is for there to be full sunshine and full public accountability.”

“I regret,” he said, “that the Bloomberg administration has not urged the members of the commissioner and the former staff of the release board to come and just tell us what happened.”

Mr. Miller – who is expected to seek the Democratic nomination to run for mayor next fall against Mr. Bloomberg – would not say whether he thought Velella and two of the former legislator’s co-conspirators, Hector Del Toro and Manuel Gonzalez, should be sent back to jail. That, Mr. Miller said, would be up to the courts to decide.

Meanwhile, the newly appointed chairman of the conditional release board, Daniel Richman, a tenured professor at Fordham Law School, told the council yesterday he did not know when the new commission would be in place or who would be on it.

Mr. Richman, who said he had never heard of the panel until the Velella controversy erupted, said his goal was to return it to a low profile. Despite prodding from members of the council, he refused to be pinned down on his views of wrongdoing in the Velella case, or on changes he would make, saying he was still familiarizing himself with procedures and didn’t have any commission members to consult with.

He even left the door open for the abolishment of the commission. Acknowledging the issue would have to be reviewed by the State Legislature, he said the commission should not be used as a “celebrity release board.”

Council Member David Yassky, a Democrat of Brooklyn, said it is not enough for the commission’s members to resign. He said questions about what led to the decision needed answering.

Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday it would be up to District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and the investigations department to decide whether Velella and his partners go back to jail.