Relevance of Section 20, Reports Of Human Rights Act,1993

This project is about section 20 of the Protection of Human Rights Act,1993. This is an important section of the act which reveals all essential details about the commission in the form of an annual report. This section also includes various other reports prepared by the commission which required due attention immediately.

The section states that:

1)The commission shall submit an annual report to the central government and to the state government concerned and may at any time submit special reports on any matter which, in its opinion, is of such urgency or importance that it should not be deferred till submission of the annual report.

2) The central government and state government, as the case may be, Shall cause the annual and special reports of the commission to be laid before each house of the parliament or the state legislature respectively, as the case may be, along with a memorandum of action taken or proposed to be taken on the recommendations of the commission and the reasons for non-acceptance of the recommendations, if any.

Thus it is clearly stated that all the activities of the commission are covered in its annual reports and special reports.

For our project we got the samples of the annual report of 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 of the Kerala State Human Rights Commission. Thus, our project report about the annual reports is based on these two reports which we have received.

From our study of both the reports we find that the annual report prepared by the commission has VIII chapters.

The first chapter deals with the Introduction about the which year the annual report is of and also names and date of joining of the head officers of the commission like the chairman, secretary, registrar, finance officer etc

The second chapter deals with Infrastructure which states the location of the commission and also of administrative set up which includes structure of administrative wing and officers it has from secretary to peons and PTS and the investigation wing with the staff structure from the chief investigation officer who is IG of police to the typists and drivers in the wing.

The Third chapter is the most relevant aspect of the annual report which generally deals with The activities of the commission. The commission continues to perform the functions mandated by section 12 r/w sub-section 5 of section 21 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. Addressing issues concerning human rights and attempts at sensitizing people to the safeguards available to them for the Protection of Human Rights remains the vital areas of the commission’s activities.

This section deals with the number of complaints the commission has received and the number that were disposed of. It has categorized its actions into three i.e. actions taken on petitions, actions taken on suo-moto, visits conducted by the commission and after a brief explanation of each of the three actions it has allotted the cases it has dealt with in the particular year under these three actions.

The commission has made suitable recommendations to the government with respect to each case and has worked a lot in the Protection of Human Rights through its recommendations and orders. It has also visited places like the Sub-jail at pala, community health centre in kumbalangi, Government Hospital at karuvellipady in ernakulam and many more of the like during the years of 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 to improve the conditions there as a part of the Protection of Human Rights.

The next chapter deals with the seminars conducted by the commission during the respective year. It has conducted various seminars in distinct parts of the state and also has the details of the Human Rights Day celebration on 10^th of December, every year. It has been noted based on these two annual reports that the number of seminars and awareness programs conducted by the commission is increasing in a very positive way each year.

Chapter 5 deals with the committees constituted under the Commission. In the year of 2002-2003 and 2003-2004, as per the annual report received by us, there is the complaints committee and committee for training of trainers which was started in 2003-2004.

Chapter 6 deals with Government’s response to the commissions recommendations where it stated in the years of 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 that government has accepted the recommendations of the commission in some cases involving the infringement of human rights and abuse of authority by public servants and appropriate action was taken by the government pursuant to the commissions recommendations. The cases of the particular year are also cited with the details of the recommendations of the commission and response from the government.

Chapter 7 deals with miscellaneous aspects like finance and constraints of the commission. The state government is the sole source of funds for meeting the commission’s expenses. The details of funds received and its utilization is given in the form of an income and expenditure statement in annexure II at the end of the annual report after the concluding observation.

The main constraint stated by the commission in the annual reports of 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 is the shortage of staff and the government not favouring the commission in this aspect. It has stated its difficulties of not even being able to publish a single bulletin board or dispose of cases quicker because of shortage of staff being the sole reason. Insufficiency of staff was holding up the progress of investigation, in those years and the commission has requested the government to take urgent steps to remedy these deficiencies that it had pointed out in the constraints.

The annual report has its conclusion in its 8^th chapter which has the concluding observations and the year wise statement of the number of petitions received and disposed from the working of commission in 1994 till date in the annexure I.

In the concluding observation it has mentioned about the spurt in the number of cases taken cognizance with the commission reflecting the confidence reposed on the commission by the general public and the positive effect of its efforts in sensitizing the people to human rights.

The commission is extremely conscious of its enormous responsibility cast on it by the society and the constraints imposed on it by the statute. The commission has struck a balance between the two and discharged its duties with rectitude, transparency and swiftness within the parameter of legislation and has done a commendable job over the years under its efficient and cooperative team under a dynamic leadership.