The number of custodial deaths in India has risen in the last few years, with around 1,700 cases being reported annually since 2012-13, says a report compiled by the anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency India International (TII). The number for 2015-16 is 1,822, the second highest ever recorded by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in its 26-year records since 1993. The highest ever was in 2007-08, at 1,977 custodial deaths. Ever since 1998, there have always been more than a thousand custodial deaths recorded every year in India.
The NHRC also has 22,043 complaints pending unredressed, the TII added. The report was released on occasion of International Human Rights Day.
The TII report notes that the NHRC and State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) were mandated to be created by the Supreme Court and have important roles to play in ensuring and securing human rights to Indians. However, the way they function makes them little more than toothless tigers most of the time.
Here are some statistics. Five states in India do not have an SHRC. These include Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram, which have not constituted SHRC yet, and Himachal Pradesh, whose SHRC is defunct and Telangana, which is still on its way to revive the SHRC.
Of the 23 states which do have SHRC, the post of chairperson is vacant in 10 states. “Without a chairperson, the SHRC is almost as good as not being there,'' notes Brij Bhushan Singh, deputy director, TII. Similarly, a cumulative 16 posts of members are vacant across the SHRCs. Only eight states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Odisha, Punjab, Uttarakhand and West Bengal) have facility for filing complaints online, while four states (Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Jharkhand and Tripura) do not even have their own websites, the report further adds. “In this digital age, if you do not have a website, or the website does not tell the person the procedure for filing a report, how can the organisation even reach out to people?'' says Singh.
Suo moto cognizance of violation of human rights, abetment or negligence of prevention of such a violation is perhaps the most essential mandate given to human rights commissions, the report says, noting how in this duty, the commissions have been lax. The NHRC has registered only 1,067 suo moto cases between 2007-08 to 2016-17. “Human rights commissions in Rajasthan (2,120), Assam (1,718) and Gujarat (1,711) are the top commissions fulfilling this essential mandate diligently,'' the report states.
TII also noted that only six states, namely Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan and Sikkim have published annual reports till 2017-18. For the others, much of the records are not even available.
