Assess the effectiveness of the National Human Rights Commission in redressing grievances pertaining to human rights violations in India. (2010)
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), set up under the Protection of Human Rights Act (PHRA), 1993, inquires under Section 12(a) into violations, or negligence in preventing them, by a public servant. That function is the core of its grievance work. As an accessible channel for relief it has worked reasonably well. As a route to remedy and accountability it has worked poorly.
The redress machinery
- Low-cost access. A complaint needs no fee, lawyer or set format, and the Commission can act suo motu from a news report.
- Court-like inquiry. Section 13 gives it civil-court powers to summon witnesses and requisition records, and its proceedings are deemed judicial. Section 14 lets it use government investigators, and its own Investigation Division conducts spot inquiries.
- Relief. Section 18 allows it to recommend compensation, prosecution and interim relief (at any stage of inquiry since 2006), and to move the Supreme Court or a High Court.
Evidence of effectiveness
| Period | Registered | Disposed | Suo motu | Relief recommended |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2023–Nov 2024 | 65,973 | 66,378 | 109 | about Rs 17.2 crore |
| Oct 2024–Sept 2025 | 73,849 | 38,063 | 108 | about Rs 9 crore in 210 cases |
| 1993–Sept 2025 | about 23.8 lakh handled | – | 2,981 | over Rs 263 crore in 8,924 cases |
- Custodial grievances became reportable. Its 1993 direction required District Magistrates and SPs to report every custodial death within 24 hours, backed later by videographed post-mortems. It also issued encounter-death guidelines (1997, revised 2010), which the Supreme Court built on in PUCL v. State of Maharashtra (2014).
- Courts have lent teeth. In Abdul Sathar (February 2021), a Full Bench of the Madras High Court held that human rights commission recommendations under Section 18 bind the government and can be enforced.
- Relief for the voiceless. Suo motu action reaches victims who would never file a complaint, such as sewer workers, prisoners and inmates of shelter homes.
Why redress falls short
- Disposal is not remedy. In 2024–25, relief was recommended in 210 of about 38,000 disposals, fewer than one per cent. Most complaints are dismissed in limine, closed on the government’s own report, or transferred to State Commissions.
- Backlog. Disposals fell to about half of registrations, adding roughly 36,000 cases to the backlog in 2024–25.
- Compensation without accountability. In the Punjab mass-cremations reference, the Commission awarded relief to families but declined to fix individual police culpability. Prosecutions of public servants remain rare.
- Statutory bars. Section 36(2) shuts out complaints more than a year old, and N. C. Dhoundial v. Union of India (2004) treated that bar as going to jurisdiction. Section 19 confines the Commission to seeking a government report on complaints against the armed forces, a category read to include the central armed police.
- Police investigate police. Its investigators are officers on deputation, and district police generate most of the reports it relies on.
- Scope. Abuses by private actors fall outside the Commission unless a public servant’s negligence is shown.
The critics’ gibe that it is a glorified post office captures the pattern of complaints forwarded to, and answered by, the accused state. In Andreas Schedler‘s terms the Commission secures answerability but not enforcement.
Conclusion
The NHRC is effective at the first mile of grievance redress: intake, publicity, interim compensation and national reporting norms for custodial deaths. It is ineffective at the last mile, which means punishment, systemic correction and time-barred or military cases. Binding recommendations, an independent investigative cadre and deletion of Section 36(2) would turn a relief counter into a remedy.