Pending cases in NHRC come down

An intensive effort to bring down pending cases in the National Human Rights Commission appears to have yielded some results with such complaints dropping to 13,000 this January compared to 15,550 last December.

This comes despite the NHRC receiving 7,076 complaints in the month of January.

According to NHRC statistics, the pending cases have come down to 13,089 this January compared to 15,464 after the Commission disposed of 9,451 old and new cases during the month.

In December, the number of old and new cases disposed of was 5,932 while the number of complaints it received was 7,352. The increase in the number of disposal of cases in January has resulted in the drop in pending cases.

A senior NHRC official attributes the pending cases to the absence of state-level bodies and cited Delhi as an example.

A total of 2,525 complaints were received at the Commission in Delhi from April to September last year but only around 500 cases were disposed of by October. "These statistics show the scope of state-level bodies," he said.

The Union Home Ministry, which tabled the NHRC annual report for 2008-09 in Parliament last year, said there were 5,433 complaints of human rights violations from Delhi to the NHRC in 2008-09 and all these were filed with NHRC only.

"The NCT of Delhi did not have any SHRC during the period reported upon," it said.

Though NHRC has completed 18 years of its existence last October, 15 states and union terroritories are yet to set up State Human Rights Commission while the bodies existing in nine states have no full time chairpersons or members.

Under Section 21 of 'The Protection of Human Rights Act' of 1993, State Human Rights Commissions are required to be constituted by state governments.

In the past over 18 years, the NHRC has registered a total over 11 lakh cases of human rights violations, either suo moto or on complaints or on intimation by the prison and police authorities.

It also recommended monetary relief of over Rs 51 crore to victims so far even as Uttar Pradesh and Delhi earned the dubious distinction of being on the top of the list from where maximum complaints came.

Uttar Pradesh tops the list with over 6.22 lakh complaints followed by Delhi at over 69,000.

The ten top states from where maximum complaints have been registered include Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand.