New Delhi, August 17th, 2010

The National Human Rights Commission held a meeting of the State Human Rights Commissions in New Delhi today. In his opening remarks, the Chairperson, NHRC, Mr. Justice K.G. Balakrishnan said that all the State Governments should take steps to strengthen their State Human Rights Commissions. Mere setting of the State Human Rights Commission will not serve any purpose, if they are not provided with sufficient manpower and infrastructure for their effective functioning. He also said that the states which do not have Human Rights Commission should also take steps to set up them at the earliest.

Justice Balakrishnan said that the State Governments need to appreciate that the Human Rights Commissions are meant to facilitate good governance. They are for the help of the administration and the people of the country to achieve their social, cultural and economic rights. However, he appreciated that NHRC received good cooperation from the State Governments, as 99 per cent of its recommendations are implemented by them.

Justice Balakrishnan said that NHRC can assist in providing material and resource persons to the State Human Rights Commissions for the training of their personnel in the area of human rights. He also hoped that the State Human Rights Commission will improve their Complaint Management Systems with the assistance of NHRC.

There are 18 Human Rights Commissions in the country and recently, the governments of Jharkhand and Sikkim have also notified constitution of the State Human Rights Commissions.

During the discussions in the meeting quantum of complaints on human rights violations, lack of manpower, financial and infrastructural resources emerged as the major concerns of the State Human Rights Commissions. The State Human Rights Commissions were of the view that some mechanism needs to be evolved to ensure uniformity in deployment of manpower in the State Human Rights Commissions, either in accordance with the population or the number of complaints received in each state.

Earlier, welcoming the participants, the Secretary General, NHRC, Mr. K.S. Money hoped that the closure interaction between NHRC and SHRCs will help in finding joint strategies for addressing the emerging challenges in the area of human rights protection and promotion.

Some of the other issues discussed during the meeting included Financial, Functional and Administrative Autonomy of SHRCs, complaint disposal by SHRCs, Financial assistance from NHRC for Human Rights Training programmes, organizing seminars and workshops, sittings of the Commission in States, involvement of NGOs, Amendments to the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, Complaint Management System, Strengthening of District Human Rights Courts.

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