How ‘toothless’ NHRC knocked its own teeth out

Hardly surprising since throughout its 10-year existence, the NHRC is yet to intervene in a single case anywhere in the court. This despite an express provision, Section 12(b) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, empowering the NHRC to ‘‘intervene in any proceedings involving any allegation of violation of human rights pending before a court with the approval of such court.’’

Had the NHRC thought of invoking this statutory function in the Best Bakery case, the Vadodara court would have had to admit it as an intervener and that could well have changed the course of the trial.

‘‘This should have come naturally to the NHRC,’’ says human rights advocate H S Phoolka. ‘‘In any mass killing, it’s the commission’s job to step in and ensure that victims get justice especially when the system is stacked against them.’’

Instead, what the commission has done so far is to make strident noises that have gone largely unheard. Take March 2002 when then chairman Justice J S Verma led a team to Gujarat. Not one of his key recommendations was taken seriously—evident in the court’s strictures on the police in the Best Bakery case. It was the riot-tainted police who handled the matter despite the NHRC’s repeated suggestion that the CBI be brought in.

And despite the fact that the NHRC recorded widespread allegations that ‘‘FIRs had been poorly or wrongly recorded and that investigations had been influenced by extraneous considerations.’’

In less than a fortnight, the Modi Government rejected this suggestion by arguing that a probe by its police ‘‘cannot be put into disrepute…merely on the basis of hostile propaganda.’’

Two months later, the NHRC again raised the issue—only to be rejected again.