State Of Human Rights Commissions In India: A Report (image: x.com/India_NHRC/)

Several of the State Human Rights Commission do not meet demands adhered under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, newslaundry observes. In a report, Tanishka Sodhi points out that seven state commissions and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the country do not have a permanent chairperson.

As per Protection of Human Rights Act, state panels should have a chairperson and two other members. Chairperson should be a chief justice or a judge of a high court and among the two members one should be a judge of a high court or district judge in the state with at least seven years of experience, and another member should be from people who have knowledge or practical experience of human rights matters.

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However, three state commissions do not have a chairperson, seven of them do not have permanent chairpersons and 12 states do not have one or both members, Sodhi reports. The Telangana and Mizoram commissions do not have a single officer.

Since June, NHRC has not had a full-time chairperson. It has been lying vacant after former Supreme Court justice Arun Mishra retired from the post on June 1. Following, Vijaya Bharati Sayani stepped in as the acting chairperson, and is currently the sole full-time member as other members’ position lie vacant.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, UN-recognised Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) deferred its accreditation to NHRC for the second time. The group has pointed out several factors for their decision including political interference in appointing members to the Commission, involvement of the police in the inquiry related to human rights violations, and poor cooperation with civil society. The Geneva-based international group, GANHRI comprise of 16 human rights agencies.

Since December 2022, the Telangana state human rights commission has been entirely non-functioning without a chairperson or members when Justice G Chandraiah’s term ended. As per its website denotes, more than 10,000 cases remain pending at the commission, with not a single order passed in nearly two years, the newslaundry reports. Mizoram, which has established the commission on October 11, prompted by a Gauhati High Court directive is yet to appoint any chairperson or members. Meanwhile, Haryana got a chairperson in November after a interval of 19 months, while its members were appointed after 14 months.

Currrently, Punjab, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh Telangana does not have even one member currently in the commission, judicial or non-judicial, Sodhi says in the report.

“In Punjab, Justice Sant Prakash oversees the commission, while Jharkhand relies on acting chairperson Santosh Kumar Satpathy. Similarly, Justice PS Rana leads the Himachal Pradesh commission, but with no members to support him. Arunachal Pradesh faces the same issue under Bamang Tago,” Sodhi adds.

In contrast, the situation in states like Gujarat, Tripura, Karnataka, Nagaland, Manipur, and Sikkim is comparatively better but still have at least one vacant member position. There are no permanent chairpersons in the human rights commissions in Goa, Arunachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, and Sikkim. In Karnataka, Dr T Sham Bhatt is serving as acting chairperson, and in Goa, Desmond D’Costa is handling the position for more than a year, it reports.

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“Chhattisgarh, which has seen several human rights violations in the last year, including gang rape of a minor by the school’s headmaster and teachers and the arrest of human rights defenders on what global organisations call “fabricated charges,” has Giridhar Nayak, a former IPS officer, as the acting chairman since 2020,” Sodhi reports.

Kajol Srivastava, national president of PUCL, told newslaundry that with change in criteria for the appointment of NHRC chairperson, the position, in a way, has turned into “something for retired people,” and it has “become an extension of an ideology”.