Meeting of the Delhi Based Human Rights Defenders

A meeting on the issues of Human Rights Defenders was held in the Commission on the 22nd December 2017. Mr. Ambuj Sharma, Secretary General, NHRC chaired the meeting. He noted that the objective of NHRIs is not to function as an adversary to the government or the HRDs but as a companion to highlight the issues affecting human rights in government. He briefed the participants about the actions taken by the NHRC on the recommendations of the HRD workshop held in 2015.
Mr. Bezwada Wilson, Safai Karamchari Andolan, Ms. Kavita Srivastava, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Ms. Uma Kapari & Mr. Amit Kumar, National Alliance of People's Movement (NAPM), Mr. Hem Raj, Delhi Justice Resource Centre, Mr. R.H. Bansal, Center for Human Rights, Ms. Kalyani Menon Sen, & Ms. Sudha Bhardwaj, Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression, Mr. Rajiv Kumar Sharma, Human Rights Activist, Mr. Radhakanta Tripathy, Advocate & Human Rights Defender participated in the discussions.
Several issues were raised, which included, among others, progress on the torture bill, Foreign contribution (Regulation) Act and problems of the NGOs, sensitization of security forces and law enforcement agencies, strengthening legal aid services authorities, toll free number of NHRC focal point, strengthening SHRCs, expeditious registration and disposal of complaints by the NHRC, increased interface between HRDs and NHRC, besides some specific cases of human rights violations.
The NHRC officers Mr. Surajit Dey, Registrar (Law), Dr. Ranjit Singh, Joint Secretary (P&A), Dr. Sanjay Dubey, Director (A), Mr. Mahesh Bhardwaj, Senior Superintendent of Police and Mr. Srinivas Kammath, DR (Law) and Mr. Jaimini Kumar Srivastava, Dy. Director (M&C) were present among others.