: A lawyer by profession and activist in spirit, Radhakanta Tripathy, a native of Odisha, has always been in the forefront in fighting for the issues of women to protect their rights, be it gender discrimination or other harassments meted out to them.
Although most of his cases were filed before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the apex human rights panel of India, he has made a substantial stride in achieving goals. Among his scores of petitions he had filed, a petition in the Supreme Court for mandatory appointment of female members in the NHRC and State HRC was very significant as it was acceeded to with enactment of law.
Apart from this, he had also moved the Supreme Court by filing a PIL to fill up the vacancies of the National Commission for Women. In pursuant to the notice from the Supreme Court, the Government of India filled up the vacancies of the apex women right’s panel.
On Triparthy’s petition the NHRC also issued notice to the HRD Ministry for entry of female students in the Aligarh Muslim University Library. When Lincon Subuddhi was attacked in Noida, on his petition the matter was investigated by the NHRC. For protecting the rights of widows of Dadipora village in Kashmir, he drew the attention of the rights panel. He is also instrumental in exposing the truth behind the gang rape of a minor student in the CDPO office recently in Bhadrak district.
Now he has been fighting for the rights of minor girls and women forcibly introduced into prostitution in GB Road , the infamous place for prostitution in Delhi.
He still feels a lot to be done for the protection of rights and dignity of women. His spirits remained always high even if he was threatened many times by miscreants and he never looked back.
He was attacked in Bhadrak on December 28, 2014 but survived narrowly and recently he was again intimidated on February 20 in his native place, Tripathy alleged.
Tripathy moved the NHRC to issue advisories on various human issues including plight of sex workers and LGBTQIA community during Covid pandemic across India. Eventually after his petition before the NHRC, the Government of India constituted the National Council for the transgenders. Interestingly, most of the beneficiaries of his petitions don’t know him.