NHRC of India is an independent statutory body established on 12 October, 1993 as per provisions of Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, later amended in 2006.It is the watchdog of human rights in the country, i.e. the rights related to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by Indian Constitution or embodied in the international covenants and enforceable by courts in India.
NHRC sometimes is limited by the lack of power entrusted upon it. It has shown various limitation. Powerful NHRC is required to ensure safeguarding of human rights. This assume great significance in the wake of diversified and Inequal society. The evils of class, casteism, communalism, Patriarchy are so deep rooted that they lead to one or the another way violation of human rights.
Limitations of NHRC
- NHRC does not have any mechanism of investigation. In majority cases, it asks the concerned Central and State Governments to investigate the cases of the violation of Human Rights
- It has been termed as ‘India’s teasing illusion’ by Soli Sorabjee (former Attorney-General of India) due to its incapacity to render any practical relief to the aggrieved party.
- NHRC can only make recommendations, without the power to enforce decisions.
- Many times NHRC is viewed as post-retirement destinations for judges and bureaucrats with political affiliation moreover, inadequacy of funds also hamper its working.
- A large number of grievances go unaddressed because NHRC cannot investigate the complaint registered after one year of incident.
- Government often out rightly rejects recommendation of NHRC or there is partial compliance to these recommendations.
- State human rights commissions cannot call for information from the national government, which means that they are implicitly denied the power to investigate armed forces under national control.
- National Human Rights Commission powers related to violations of human rights by the armed forces have been largely restricted.
Hence, there is need to revamp the structure of NHRC and it needs to be empowered.