Over 34,000 cases pending: NHRC

NHRC Chairperson Justice V Ramasubramanian on Tuesday an-nounced that the commission currently has 34,685 pending cases from all over the country.
Speaking to reporters here after a two-day ‘Camp Sitting’ of the Commission here, he said there are 285 pending cases related to police custodial death and 2,532 cases concerning judi-cial custody death.
As per the directive issued by the NHRC in 1993 itself, if a death occurs either in a police station or in a jail, the authorities should send a report to the Commission compulsorily within 24 hours.
In 99.99 per cent of the cases, the Commission receives the report and it immediately calls for all the related reports, he said.
Justice Ramasubramanian said the number of suo motu cases taken up by the Commission is on the rise. In 2024, the Commission has taken cognisance of about 105 cases.
“In fact, the number of cases registered suo motu are on the rise. In 2021, the number of suo motu cases registered were only 17, 60 in 2022, 117 in 2023, 105 in 2024, and it has already crossed 50 in 2025,” he said.
Asked about human freedom index where India was reportedly ranked 130 and whether the NHRC engages with the governments to address relevant issues, he said the Commission holds discussions with the governments.
Last week, the NHRC held meetings with government officials in Bhubaneswar, he noted.
The Commission members undertake field visits, he said.
Justice Ramasubramanian said there is a “strange thing” with regard to human rights indexes at the international level.
Without naming a country, he said the particular country ranked high on human rights but far below in terms of press freedom.
“Insofar as human rights index is concerned, there is a very strange thing at the international level. There is one particular country, I cannot name. The human rights index is of a very high rank of that country. But, in terms of freedom of press index, it is far below. These indexes work in a very strange way. That is a country which offers protection to investors. So, there is lot of ideological barriers when creating these indices,” he said.
The NHRC also said in a release that it concluded the ‘Camp Sitting’ after hearing 109 cases of human rights violations in Telangana.
Chairperson Justice Ramasubramanian and members Justice Bidyut Ranjan Sarangi and Vijaya Bharathi Sayani heard the cases.
During the Open Hearing, the Commission heard 90 cases pertaining to deaths of children in hospitals due to fire, stray dog menace in residential areas, death in fire mishap, cases of tiger attack, trafficking of tribal women, forcible eviction of tribal families, crime against women, crime against children, among others, the release said.
The commission, after having duly considered the matters on merit, issued appropriate direc-tives.
In a significant case, the Commission intervened to address the caste-based discrimination against a family in a village in Khammam district.
The Commission held separate meetings with senior government and police officials of Tel-angana and NGOs.