Opinion National Human Rights Commission has been drifting. Its directive on UP custodial-death compensation is welcome
A cynical reading will see the NHRC’s directive as a symbolic gesture. Yet, it also represents a welcome moment of assertion, and a gesture towards a recovery of purpose.
Policymakers would do well to keep their eyes peeled for changes in underlying factors that determine headline inflation. 
The National Human Rights Commission’s (NHRC) directive to the Uttar Pradesh government to pay Rs 10 lakh to the family of a 36-year-old man who died in police custody in 2021 marks a welcome reaffirmation of the inviolability of human dignity and the imperative of accountability. That this order arrives against a backdrop of systemic failures makes it all the more resonant: According to official data, between 2020 and 2022, over 4,400 custodial (judicial and police) deaths were recorded nationwide, with UP accounting for 952 of them. In September 2023, the Gujarat State Law Commission flagged increasing incidents of custodial death in the state as “a matter of great public concern”. The Status of Policing in India Report 2025, released in March this year, showed an approval for coercive action among a sizeable percentage of police personnel, based on surveys of 8,276 officers across 17 states/UTs.The NHRC’s verdict sends a much-needed, if belated, signal that institutional abdications cannot hide behind bureaucratic obfuscation.
Established in 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Act, the NHRC was conceived as a bulwark against state excess, mandated to investigate violations and negligence, recommend remedies and shape India’s human-rights jurisprudence. For much of its early life, it rose to that promise: Flagging overcrowded and degrading prison conditions, issuing the country’s first comprehensive guidelines on extra-judicial killings, defending labour rights, standing with victims of communal violence and pressing for compensation and redress. Over time, however, a growing deference to governments, reluctance to pursue politically sensitive cases and opacity in appointments have gradually underlined the institution’s structural weaknesses: Non-binding recommendations and limited enforcement powers, for instance, that had prompted a former chairperson to describe it as a “toothless tiger”. In 2024, its accreditation with the UN-recognised Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions was deferred for a second year, citing among other things, a lack of transparency and diversity in its appointments.
A cynical reading will see the NHRC’s directive as a symbolic gesture. Yet, it also represents a welcome moment of assertion, and a gesture towards a recovery of purpose. A verdict cannot single-handedly redeem institutional drift, just as compensation cannot restore a life. But such interventions can re-anchor the commission to its primary task: Speaking up for the voiceless, and showing that vigilance matters.
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