The National Human Rights Commission of India (abbreviated as NHRC) is a statutory body constituted on 12 October 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Ordinance of 28 September 1993. It was given a statutory basis by the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 (PHRA). The NHRC is responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights, which are defined by the act as "rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants and enforceable by courts in India".
The Protection of Human Rights Act mandates the NHRC to perform the following:
The NHRC consists of the chairperson and five members (excluding the ex-officio members)
A serving judge of the Supreme Court or incumbent Chief Justice of any High Court can be appointed only after the consultation with the Chief Justice of India.
Justice V. Ramasubramanian is the current chairperson of the commission, serving since 23 December 2024 onwards.
The other members are:
Ex-officio members:
Source:
A state government may constitute a body known as the Human Rights Commission of that State to exercise the powers conferred upon and to perform the functions assigned to a State Commission. In accordance with the amendment brought in TPHRA, 1993 point No.10 below is the list of State Human Rights Commissions formed to perform the functions of the commission as stated under chapter V of TPHRA, 1993 (with amendment act 2006). At present, 25 states have constituted SHRC
Sections 2, 3 and 4 of TPHRA lay down the rules for appointment to the NHRC. The chairperson and members of the NHRC are appointed by the President of India, on the recommendation of a committee consisting of:
A report concerning how the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case was rejected, a case involving high-ranking officials, opened the organisation up to questioning over the usefulness of human rights commissions set up by the government at the national and state levels. In mid-2011, the chairman of the NHRC, ex-Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan came under a cloud for allegedly owning assets disproportionate to his income. His son-in-law P. V. Srinijan, an Indian National Congress politician, had to resign for suddenly coming into possession of land worth Rs. 25 lakhs. Many prominent jurists, including former CJ J. S. Verma, SC ex-Judge V. R. Krishna Iyer, noted jurist Fali S. Nariman, former NHRC member Sudarshan Agrawal and prominent activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan, have called on Balakrishnan's resignation pending from the NHRC pending inquiry. In February 2012, the Supreme Court of India inquired of the government regarding the status of the inquiry.
The National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) had its accreditation with the U.N recognised Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) deferred for a second consecutive year in 2024, due to concerns regarding its compliance with the Paris Principles. The deferral was attributed to issues such as a lack of transparency in the appointment of NHRC members, the inclusion of police officers in human rights investigations, and inadequate gender and minority representation within the commissionâÂÂs composition and political meddling.
The NHRC held that 16 out of 19 police encounters with suspected Maoists in Guntur and Kurnool districts of Andhra Pradesh, prior to 2002, were fake and recommended the Government payment of compensation of â¹5 lakh each to the kin of the families.