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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, July 3: The National Human Rights Commission is caught in a tussle with the Bihar government, which appears reluctant to pay the Rs 10-lakh compensation the Commission recommended for the family of a businessman shot dead in a fake police encounter.
It is a test of sorts for the NHRC which often recommends compensation to be paid by state governments for the families of police atrocity victims. State governments normally pay up. But Bihar, in the Commission’s opinion, is being difficult.
The case goes back to 1993 when six Ranchi policemen stopped the car of businessman Rajesh Dhawan and shot the occupants at point blank range. Three of the policemen were sentenced to death by the Patna High Court; three others got life imprisonment.
Replying to a show-cause notice from the Commission, the state government said the compensation was not justified as the accused had already been convicted. The compensation would cause “unnecessary financial burden on the state government”, it added.
TheCommission sent back a stinging rejoinder in May, warning the state government not to get into “perverse” legal quibbling and asking it to pay Dhawan’s widow Rs 10 lakh within a month.
The `deadline’ expired on June 6. On June 25 the Commission sent another letter to the state government, now giving it up to July 15 to comply with the recommendation.
The NHRC said it found the Bihar government’s stand that the culpability of public servants and their conviction at a criminal trial puts the matter at rest “extraordinary” and “unfortunate.”
The position, the NHRC said in May 6 order, was just the opposite. Even in cases where the culpability of public servant had not been established in a criminal case, a civil court could still grant compensation under the law of tort.
In the Dhawan case, the confirmation of capital punishment by the High Court, by itself, was “sufficient ground” for the liability of the state under Section 18 of the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993 which contemplates“immediate interim relief.”
“By no stretch of imagination can it be argued that the establishment of culpability absolves the state from making payment of compensation,” the NHRC recommendations sent to Bihar government said.
“It is not an exonerating factor; the exact opposite of it is the true position,” it added.
The NHRC faces the apparent defiance of Bihar at a time when it lobbying for more teeth: an advisory panel is now preparing a draft amendment to the Protection of Human Rights Act to strengthen the Commission. Writing to the Bihar government, the NHRC indirectly admitted its own limitations, but warned the state against exploiting them. “The recommendations of the Commission are not, no doubt, binding judicial orders,” it said. “But they cannot be undone and turned to naught by perverse and palpably untenable legal quibbling.”
It suggested that a welfare state should ensure a “liberal construction” of Section 18 of the PHR Act, and hoped the Bihar government would go along withthe “message and philosophy of the law.” And implying that it won’t let matters rest until the compensation was paid, the Commission added, “Such untenable stand of the state government would only expose it to avoidable legal hassles and litigation.”
