FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 10, 2006
AS-101-2006
A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission
INDIA: Snail pace progress at the National Human Rights Commission the Commission must accept responsibility
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received a communication from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India on 9 May 2006, informing the AHRC that it has received a report from the state police authorities in West Bengal regarding a complaint the AHRC had filed ten months before with the NHRC.
The complaint filed by the AHRC with the NHRC in India was in relation to a case of police atrocity reported from the Jalangi police station of Murshidabad District in the Indian state of West Bengal. In the complaint, the AHRC alleged that three persons were illegally detained and tortured by the officer-in-charge of the Jalangi police station, Mr. Tapas Banerjee.
The complaint was based on a report received by the AHRC through its local partner Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM). It was when members of MASUM visited the police station to lodge a complaint regarding cases of acute starvation reported from the region that they came across the three people who were illegally detained by the officer. The AHRC on receipt of the information issued an urgent appeal on this case. The AHRC in its complaint to the NHRC in India had requested immediate intervention into the matter since it was concerned about the safety of the detainees, who were released by the officer on an intervention by MASUM.
The complaint lodged by the AHRC was taken up by the NHRC in India after a month. Then NHRC called for a report regarding the allegation in the complaint from the director-general of police in West Bengal vide its letter dated 3 August 2005. Though the report by the director-general of police was submitted to the NHRC on 1 September 2005, it took a further six months for the NHRC to look into the matter.
The report was considered by the NHRC on 27 March 2006; and on the same day, the NHRC ordered that the AHRC could furnish a reply, if any, to the report within four weeks, which ended on 27 April 2006. However, this order was communicated to the AHRC through a letter dated 24 April 2006, three days short of the time specified by the NHRC and was received by the AHRC on 9 May 2006. To communicate an order of the NHRC to the complainant in a case, it took a month for the office of the NHRC to mail the order to the complainant. Contradictory to the order by the NHRC and the time limit prescribed, the order also says that, if the complainant so wished, the complainant could file a reply to the report by 24 May 2006.
The AHRC is shocked to learn about the inexcusable delay in processing cases at the NHRC in India. The AHRC in the past has raised serious concerns regarding the delays caused within the justice dispensation mechanisms in India.
Much of these delays could be avoided by a conscious approach by the courts themselves. Often a lack of adequate infrastructure is posed as an excuse for causing a delay in court proceedings in India. However, the complaint filed by the AHRC in this particular case is a fitting example as to how such delays could have been avoided without requiring additional expenditure. Had the presiding officer of the NHRC – the chairperson of the NHRC – been serious enough in ensuring that the orders made by the NHRC are communicated to the respective parties, in time, half of the delay could have been avoided. Another possibility is if the courts take up cases on much earlier dates than adjourning them for months for mere procedural matters. In this case, the report submitted by the state police was placed before the NHRC only after the expiry of six months. Had the NHRC been prudent enough in ensuring speedy justice, it could have made the order that it issued on 27 April 2006, which is purely administrative in nature, much earlier, saving precious time for the court as well as for the parties involved.
It is common knowledge, and often a subject of much lament, that delays in court proceedings are of serious concern within the four walls of the courts themselves. The statements made by various presiding officers within the Indian judiciary, including various chief justices of the country, all lament about court delays.
The concern expressed by the presiding officers regarding delays could be remedied by themselves, for what the officers require is a considerate approach and prudent time management for court proceedings. Often cases are called to meet for purely administrative matters as it was in this case, thereby clogging the work of the court. Moreover, many presiding officers will not commence proceedings on time and will not sit in court for the prescribed time. In addition, courts in India still continue the practice of long court vacations, a practice begun by the British. For example, as of today, the courts in Kerala are closed for their summer vacations – a luxury the lawyers and judges can afford at the expense of the litigants. All these result in inordinate delays, which, in the words of a former chief justice of India, will require a few hundred years to clear the backlog at the current pace of proceedings in India.
By the time a case is taken up for final hearing or for adducing evidence, the witnesses and often the parties to the proceedings might have concluded their life in this world. In certain cases, parties could be further impleaded; but in certain other cases, criminal cases in particular, the case would end by the death of a witness or an accused who waited for decades together in court verandas seeking justice. Protracted justice delivery in India is a mockery to the term justice.
There is no point shedding tears in vain when the attempt to correct mistakes does not come forth from those who first make it, the presiding officers. The Indian judiciary claims that it has set an example to other judiciaries in the region. However, the existing pace of justice dispensation in India is probably a negative example which the Indian judiciary has set, not to be followed, but to be carefully avoided by its partners in the region.
