Despite a nearly 1,500-fold increase in the number of cases in a little over two decades, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has, instead of getting more staff, witnessed a close to 17 per cent decrease in its manpower strength.
With a staff strength of just 49 in its investigation wing, NHRC handles close to 1.14 lakh cases annually, an average of over 300 cases each day. Ironically, in 1995 when NHRC was set up, there were 59 persons attached with the investigation wing who handled 7,843 cases annually. Noting this fact, the Supreme Court in a recent judgment lamented how the Commission was reduced to being a “toothless tiger”. The court asked the Centre to favourably consider the Commission’s requests for increased staff and infrastructure expeditiously.
Under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 by which the Commission came into being, the Central Government has a legal obligation to provide the Commission with such police and investigative staff under an officer not below the rank of Director General of Police (DGP). Further, in Section 11 of the Act, the Centre is duty-bound to provide “such other officers and staff as may be necessary for the efficient performance of the functions of the Commission”.
Figures placed by the Commissioner before the court during a proceeding involving encounter deaths by police, Army and Central forces in Manipur presented an altogether different story.
As on March 51, 2015, the Commission’s Investigation Division had just 49 sanctioned staff. This Division annually handled 1,14,167 complaints of which 5,496 related to custodial death cases, 1,851 fact finding cases and 120 cases which required immediate probe by the Division’s Rapid Action Cell (RAC).
The workload of the Commission has increased by gigantic proportion if one compares the statistics of complaints handled by the Investigation department of NHRC. In year 1995, the Commission annually received only 7,843 complaints of which 444 required probe into custodial death, 706 involving fact-finding, and 13 simple investigation cases.
It is clear from the above statistics that the burden of investigation by the NHRC into custodial death cases increased 1,200-fold while total complaints received showed a jump of 1,455 per cent. Sadly, what did not increase was the staff strength. In 1995, the Investigation Division had 59 sanctioned staff and by 2015, it dipped by approximately 17 per cent.
The Commission claimed that the Government has not heeded to its requests to increase the staff. This neglect to the Commission is evident even in the behaviour of State Governments. Guidelines on custodial deaths prepared by Commission from time to time are breached and reports of encounter deaths, custody deaths dispatched by the States to NHRC are illegible with several columns left blank.
The Bench of Justices Madan B lokur and UU lalit observed that faced with such handicaps, the Commission can hardly function, what to say effectively, and unavoidable damage will be caused to India’s reputation with regard to respect for human rights.