Rashida Manjoo, the United Nations special rapporteur who had come to India in the last week of April, had a frightful experience in Imphal. Addressing a press conference in the state capital, Manjoo cried while narrating the plight of the women in the state. Her report on her India experience was presented before the UN Human Rights Council in June 2013. Every year international reports criticise the deplorable condition of human rights abuse in India. In its latest report, the US state department has mentioned several human rights violations in India’s northeastern states, especially in Manipur. Even as the human rights situation in Manipur has taken a turn for the worse in the last few decades, the state human rights commission has been without a chairperson and members — and thus remains dysfunctional. It was a sad day for Manipuris on May 9, 2010, when the chairperson of the Manipur human rights commission (MHRC), the former Chhattisgarh high court chief justice WA Shishak retired. The members of the commission, M Gourachand, colonel (rtd.) RK Rajendra and Ng Nongyai, also retired the same month. The state government is tardy in appointing fresh members and the head of the commission and has missed two deadlines set up by the Imphal division of the Gauhati high court.

“The state human rights body is presently defunct. It is the duty of the state government to appoint a chairperson and members and make the organisation functional but nothing is happening on this front,” says an official in the state commission, who did not wish to be named. It is the same state where human rights activist Irom Sharmila has been on a fast for more than a decade, asking for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which granted special powers to the army working in the ‘disturbed’ area. Her fast started after 10 civilians were killed in Manipur on November 2, 2000 allegedly by the Assam Rifles jawans. The state has seen umpteen number of human rights violations such as fake encounters, forced disappearances, custodial deaths, rapes, torture, and assault.

Jinine Laishramcha, convenor, NE Human Rights Defenders Committee (NEHRDC), an organisation working for the betterment of human rights in the state, says, “Without a chairperson and a member in the body, there is only immunity and impunity to the perpetrators of human rights violations in Manipur, especially the security forces.” According to Laishramcha, there have been 28 incidents of extrajudicial executions involving 36 victims from January to November 2012 (see Box). There is a growing pressure on the state government from civil society groups to make the rights panel functional again. “Without a proper space for complaining about state atrocities, it will only prolong the agony and trauma among the numerous victims’ families and will retain its negative socio-economic impact on society in general,” adds Laishramcha.

History

Under the protection of the Human Rights Act, 1993, every state had to set up a state panel to look after the human rights violations. However, Manipur woke up late, exactly five years later, on June 27, 1998, setting up the state human rights panel after pressure from different civil society groups. Yambem Laba, who was the member of the inaugural panel from 1998 to 2003, recounts how tough it was to work with no facilities. “When we started, there was no official structure, not even a stenographer. The judge and members used to type orders on their own. I had typed so many petitions, orders and press releases,” says Laba. Laba hardly got his salary on time. He often paid for the fuel of his official car from his own pocket. But this did not deter him from performing his duties, even with such lacklustre infrastructure. In the first year of existence (1998), the panel looked into 300 cases of human rights violations in the state. In the next year, it took up 250 cases. During his tenure, Laba increased the ambit of human rights issue from custodial deaths to the rights to education, healthcare and good roads. In 2002, in one of the cases, the rights panel issued notices to the director of RIMS Hospital in Imphal when doctors left a patient because they were not paid ‘tips’. Journalist-turned-human rights activist Laba first filed a case in the supreme court in 1980 seeking removal of AFSPA. He is also known as the ‘father of human rights’ in Manipur. This panel finished its tenure in 2003. After a gap of two years, another panel came up which worked until 2010. “I was very active during my tenure and made the government answerable to so many things. There was an impression that the rights panel is acting against the state. I think that’s why they are not in a hurry to appoint a chairperson and members in the human rights body,” Laba adds. He points out that the government has a mindset problem and a mental block when it comes to improving the human rights scenario in the state.

“The government response remains questionable in the promotion of human rights,” says Laishramcha, who filed a petition in the Gauhati high court in 2005, accusing the state government of dereliction of duty in not appointing the chairperson and members of the panel. Finally, the state was forced to appoint the chairperson and members to the panel in 2005. This panel again ran for five years before ending its tenure in 2010.

Now, the state is again in the dock for not appointing a new rights panel. It has been three years since the rights body is defunct in Manipur. “With both the rights body and the state information commission having been defunct for years, there is no hope of the people’s grievances being heard or addressed,” said Laba. Chaoba Takhenchangbam, a human rights activist now working with the North East Dialogue Forum, filed a petition in 2011 in the Imphal division bench of the Gauhati high court alleging that the state government was not serious about appointing a chairperson and members of the rights body. On October 19, 2011, the division bench gave an order directing the state government that “the Manipur state human rights commission should be functional within a period of four months from the date of receipt of copy (of this order)”.

Extensions

As the state government was unable to revive the rights body by the end of February 2012, as per the court’s order, it wanted an extension. The court on February 20 gave the state another extension of six months to appoint its vacant posts in the rights commission. Again by the end of August, when as per the court’s order, the state government could not finalise any names for the commission’s posts, it sought an extension by writing to court for granting another six months’ time. “It is a contempt of court,” said Chaoba.

But the state government cites a practical problem in the appointment of the chairperson and members. In accordance to section 21 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, it is mandatory to have a functioning state human rights commission. Earlier, the state commission was to consist of a chairperson, who has been the chief justice of a high court, one member, who is, or has been a judge of a high court, one member, who is, or has been, a district judge in that state, and two other members who have knowledge or practical experience in matters relating to human rights. There was an amendment in rules for selecting the candidates. As per the new guidelines, the commission is to comprise a chairperson who has served as chief justice of a high court, one member who has been judge of a high court or district judge in the state with a minimum of seven years experience as district judge and one member with practical experience in matters relating to human rights. However, the state government apparently faces problems in finding such functionaries. It told the court that there was no retired chief justice of a high court available for the appointment as chairman and no judge who held such post for seven years continuously for fulfilment as member of the commission in Manipur. “Under the Manipur Judicial Service Rules, 2005, there are only two sanctioned posts of district & sessions judge manned by a judicial officer of Manipur Judicial Services (MJS) grade-I and the judicial officers holding charge of these two posts are transferable to the posts of judge, special court-Manipur, family court-Manipur, Registrar Gauhati high court, Imphal bench and presiding officer, revenue tribunal/motor accident claims tribunal, from time to time and as such no judicial officer of MJS grade-I remains/remained as district & sessions judge for long and never for 7 years,” Y Rameshchandra Singh, secretary (law), Manipur, wrote to joint secretary, ministry of home affairs.

“Basically it is a chronic situation. There is no collaboration between the national human rights commission (NHRC) and the states’ rights panels. The system needs an overhaul,” said Miloon Kothari, convenor, Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN (WGHR). The NHRC submission to UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in the universal periodic review (UPR) II, where it pointed out how the government has fared on empowering the rights body, said, “The state human rights commissions are mostly moribund and very few human rights courts have been set up.” Even after February 20, 2013, when the latest deadline the government had asked for setting up the panel ended, the government is still dilly-dallying on the appointments. Citizens continue to suffer. People still come to Laba who files requests to the NHRC on a regular basis. Let’s see when the next rights panel comes up in the state, and more importantly, moves beyond being just a signboard.