Pending cases mount at state human rights panel

Indian Express: Pune: Tuesday, April 29, 2014.

Since 2001, and till February 2014, as many as 15,266 cases had been filed before the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission (MSHRC), but the panel has been able to disposed of less than a thousand of them. As many as 14,285 cases are still pending, documents accessed under the Right to Information (RTI) have revealed.

Constituted under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, the MSHRC, headed by Justice B R Bannurmath, looks into the various cases of violation of human rights. Refusal of the police to file FIR, alleged action by the police, denial of human rights of HIV/AIDS infected people, custodial deaths and other kinds of complaints are looked into by the commission. No fee or stamp paper is required to move the commission, and for many it is the last resort for justice.

According to documents furnished by the commission in reply to an application filed by The Indian Express, pendency at the MSHRC in 2001-02 was nil. Till February 2014, the highest number of complaints (7,208) were received in 2008-09, while the least number of 1,454 complaints were received in 2001-02. Since 2008, the number of complaints has gone down.

The number of cases disposed of has taken a plunge from 2011-12, with the year 2012-13 and the period between April 1, 2013 and August 31, 2013, witnessing zero cases being settled.

The highest number of complaints disposed of after report/hearing was in  2008-09 when 3,402 cases were solved. Relief was awarded in as many as 347 of them. The same year had seen 8,563 cases being disposed of in total, the highest in the given time period.

Senior officers of the commission said the rising pendency was due to the fact that the MSHRC had been without any judicial officer for almost 20 months. During the period, the staff only accepted the complaints and no action was taken on them. “The functioning of the commission is akin to that of a court and in the absence of any judicial officer, we could not process them. With new complaints being filed with the commission every day, the pendency will rise,” said an officer.

Senior advocate with Human Rights Law Network Gayatri Singh said the MSHRC had a daunting and challenging task ahead as it did not have a chairperson for a long time. “There is shortage of staff, and lack of necessary infrastructure, due to which there is no followup and at times orders are not taken seriously,” she said.