National Human Rights Commission: Protecting and Enforcing Human Rights in India

Defining human rights under Indian law 🔗

Custodial deaths, encounter killings, and abuse of power by public officials made headlines through the late 1980s and early 1990s in India. There was no single, independent body citizens could turn to when the state itself was the violator. That gap led Parliament to pass the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, which set up the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to investigate such violations and push for stronger safeguards.

The Act gives human rights a precise legal meaning. Under it, human rights are the rights relating to life, liberty, equality, and dignity of the individual, guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in international covenants and enforceable by Indian courts. This definition matters because it ties the NHRC’s mandate to two sources at once: the Constitution of India and international instruments India has signed, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

How the NHRC came into being 🔗

The NHRC was constituted on 12 October 1993, initially through a presidential ordinance and then given a firmer statutory footing when Parliament passed the Protection of Human Rights Act. It functions as an independent statutory body, not a constitutional one, which means it exists because of an ordinary law and can, in theory, be altered or repealed by Parliament rather than requiring a constitutional amendment.

The Commission is headed by a Chairperson who has served as Chief Justice of India or a Judge of the Supreme Court, supported by full-time and deemed members. Deemed members include the heads of national commissions such as those for women, minorities, and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, which lets the NHRC draw on specialised expertise when a complaint overlaps with another commission’s domain. The President appoints the Chairperson and members on the recommendation of a high-powered committee that includes the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in both Houses of Parliament, and the Union Home Minister, a structure meant to keep appointments broadly non-partisan.

What Section 12 actually asks the NHRC to do 🔗

Section 12 of the Act lays out the Commission’s core functions, and it is worth separating them because they serve different purposes.

Investigating complaints 🔗

The NHRC can inquire, either on its own initiative (suo motu) or on a complaint filed by a victim or someone acting on their behalf, into any violation of human rights or negligence in preventing such a violation by a public servant. It can also intervene in ongoing court proceedings that involve allegations of human rights violations, with the court’s permission. Anyone can approach the Commission; there is no fee, and complaints can be filed online, by post, or in person.

Reviewing safeguards and studying treaties 🔗

Beyond individual complaints, the Commission is expected to review existing constitutional and legal safeguards for human rights and suggest measures for their effective implementation. It also studies international treaties and instruments on human rights and recommends steps for their better enforcement in India, which is one reason NHRC reports often reference global conventions alongside domestic law.

Visits, research, and awareness 🔗

The Commission can visit jails and other institutions under state control to study the living conditions of inmates and recommend improvements. It undertakes and promotes research in the field of human rights, and it works to spread human rights literacy through publications, seminars, and media outreach. This awareness function is often underestimated, but it shapes how public servants and citizens alike understand what counts as a rights violation in the first place.

The powers question: what NHRC can and cannot enforce 🔗

When inquiring into a complaint, the NHRC has the powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. It can summon witnesses and examine them under oath, requisition public records, and receive evidence on affidavit. These are genuine investigative teeth, comparable to what a trial court can do while gathering evidence.

Where things get contested is what happens after an inquiry. The Commission cannot punish a guilty official or directly order compensation the way a court can. It can only recommend that the concerned government pay compensation to the victim, initiate prosecution or departmental action against the public servant, or grant immediate interim relief. Whether these recommendations bind the government has become a live legal question. In early 2025, the Delhi High Court held that human rights commissions should not be treated as toothless, ruling that their considered recommendations carry weight the government cannot simply set aside without judicial challenge. More recently, though, the Punjab and Haryana High Court took a narrower view, calling the NHRC a recommendatory body with no power to issue binding directions comparable to a court, while noting it is not without remedy since it can approach the Supreme Court or a High Court for enforcement. This unsettled question is exactly why the Commission’s moral authority and public visibility matter as much as its formal legal powers.

State Human Rights Commissions: the state-level counterpart 🔗

The same 1993 Act allows every state to set up its own State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), and most states have done so through official gazette notifications. An SHRC mirrors the NHRC’s structure at a smaller scale, typically with a chairperson (usually a retired Chief Justice or Judge of a High Court) and two members.

Where an SHRC’s authority stops 🔗

An SHRC can only inquire into matters falling under the State List and the Concurrent List of the Constitution’s Seventh Schedule. Subjects reserved for the Union List, and human rights issues in Delhi, fall outside its reach and are handled by the NHRC instead. There is also a time limit: an SHRC generally cannot take up a complaint if more than one year has passed since the alleged violation occurred, which makes prompt reporting important for anyone seeking redress.

What an SHRC can recommend 🔗

Like the NHRC, an SHRC enjoys the powers of a civil court during inquiries and can recommend compensation, prosecution of the responsible official, or interim relief to the victim. It can also approach the High Court or Supreme Court for directions when needed. In practice, several SHRCs have secured meaningful outcomes, from ordering compensation in custodial violence cases to pushing state departments to improve conditions in shelters and detention facilities.

Beyond NHRC and SHRC: India’s wider grievance redressal ecosystem 🔗

Human rights commissions are one part of a much larger accountability architecture in India. Understanding how they fit alongside other mechanisms gives a fuller picture of how citizens can seek redress.

Courts and human rights courts 🔗

The Act also envisages the setting up of Human Rights Courts at the district level to enable speedy trial of offences involving human rights violations, working alongside the regular judiciary rather than replacing it. The Supreme Court and High Courts remain the ultimate forums for enforcing fundamental rights through writ jurisdiction.

Statutory commissions and ombudsmen 🔗

Bodies such as the National Commission for Women, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights handle grievances specific to their focus groups, often working in coordination with the NHRC on overlapping cases. Sector-specific ombudsmen, including the Banking Ombudsman and Insurance Ombudsman, address grievances within their domains.

Transparency and anti-corruption tools 🔗

The Right to Information Act empowers citizens to demand information from public authorities, which indirectly strengthens accountability by making official reasoning harder to hide. The Lokpal at the central level and Lokayuktas in several states investigate corruption complaints against public functionaries, including, in the Lokpal’s case, the Prime Minister under specified conditions.

Consumer forums and digital platforms 🔗

For grievances against businesses or service providers, the Consumer Protection framework provides district, state, and national consumer disputes redressal commissions. On the administrative side, the Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) lets citizens track and escalate complaints against central government departments online, reflecting a broader shift toward faster, technology-driven grievance handling.

Together, these mechanisms show that the NHRC and SHRCs are not meant to work in isolation. A single incident, say, custodial abuse during a police investigation, could potentially trigger a human rights commission inquiry, a criminal case in a regular court, and an RTI request to access official records, all running in parallel.

Why the NHRC still matters, despite its limits 🔗

Critics rightly point out that the NHRC cannot punish anyone and its recommendations can be ignored. But dismissing it as ineffective misses what it has actually achieved: it has documented systemic issues in prisons and mental health institutions, pushed for compensation in high-profile custodial death cases, and kept human rights language part of everyday governance conversations in India. Its real strength lies less in coercive power and more in its ability to investigate, publicise, and pressure, functions that matter especially when the violator is the state itself.

What do you think? Should the NHRC’s recommendations be made legally binding on the government, and if so, how would that change the balance between the executive and an independent watchdog body? Does having both an NHRC and a separate SHRC in every state create better protection, or does it risk overlapping and diluting accountability?

References

1. https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/15709
2. https://nhrc.nic.in/vision-&-mission
3. https://www.livelaw.in/high-court/delhi-high-court/delhi-high-court-human-rights-commission-recommendations-binding-282275
4. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/news-legal/rights-panel-cannot-act-like-court-issue-directions-punjab-and-haryana-high-court/
5. https://www.nextias.com/blog/grievance-redressal-in-india/
6. https://www.clearias.com/grievance-redressal/