annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 NHRC’s Inefficiency
passed, not a single Chakma and Hajong
has been granted citizenship pursuant to
the Supreme Court judgement. The NHRC
has failed to follow up implementation of
its own case.
IV. Conclusions and
recommendations
It is beyond the powers of the NHRC
to address the statutory limitations. The
NHRC has indeed raised many of these
issues. Chairman of the NHRC Justice A S
Anand has regretted that amendments to
the Human Rights Act are yet to be
implemented despite the commission’s
recommendations about five years ago. 6
While the attitude of the government of
India remains condemnable, what about the
operational inefficiencies of the NHRC?
NHRC in fact cannot make any excuse.
There is no need for statutory changes to
address operational inefficiencies but mere
instructions from the Chairperson or the
Secretary General to clear up the clogged
up system. In this regard, Asian Centre for
Human Rights makes the following
recommendations to the NHRC.
- NHRC must establish an in-house
complaint mechanisms against
non-registration of complaints etc;
- NHRC must make it mandatory to
provide all the responses from the
State to the complainants
WITHOUT ANY CENSORSHIP.
If the State authorities request to
keep certain information
confidential, the complainant
must be informed to enable
him/her to take necessary
measures including appealing to
the NHRC or the courts;
- NHRC must set a specific time
frame within which the responses
from the state authorities be
forwarded to the complainant;
- NHRC should develop a
computerized system where all
the complaints must come up for
scrutiny/follow up every six
months;
- NHRC should develop
mechanisms to consider appeals
against the closure of complaints
on frivolous grounds;
- NHRC must develop mechanisms
to protect the complainants and
order not to provide the addresses
of the complainants to the
authorities if so requested and that
NHRC must publicise in its
website that the complainants can
request to remain unanimous;
- NHRC must order that under no
circumstances, the police officer/s
against whom the allegations are
pending be requested to conduct
the inquiries against
himself/herself;
- NHRC must create a separate unit
for implementation of its
judgements or orders obtained
from the courts. ■
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