Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have voiced their ire over the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC) subjecting them to a police inquiry.
At least two organisations being probed — the South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM) and the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) — have decided not to cooperate with the police probe into their organisations.
Most of the complaints of human rights abuse lodged with the KSHRC are against the police, so it would be ironic for the police to conduct the probe, said Mathews Philip, executive director, SICHREM.
Colin Gonsalves, senior advocate with the Supreme Court and founder of the HRLN, said the order had no legal merit and need not be complied with. “If the KSHRC is asking the police to probe and report on our credibility, a natural question arises regarding the credibility of the police, who are one of the biggest violators of human rights,” he said.
He added that the KSHRC’s move to probe all and sundry, over a scandal with one organisation is also a negative presumption. Moreover, they are only probing registered organisations, which thus assumes that the non-registered are not credible, which is again wrong. “The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), one of the foremost human rights organisations, is not registered. Who are the police to decide whether a particular organisation is credible or not,” he said.
However, Madhu Sharma, secretary, KSHRC, author of the letter seeking the probe by the city police, said it was a non-issue and that they asked for help from the police routinely for investigations as they did not have an apparatus to handle it themselves.
There are many organisations that exist only on paper, at times even misusing the commission’s name. We are trying to identify the credible organisations and weed out the rest. The probe is part of routine activities of the commission.
Meera Saksena,
Acting chairperson, KSHRC
A major chunk of complaints is against the police, and we fight them almost every day. In such a situation, it is ironic that the police are given powers to give their report on our ‘credibility’. There is a conflict of interest. We are not going to cooperate with this probe.
Mathews Philip,
Executive Director, SICHREM
