The Madras High Court has held that neither the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) nor the State-level commissions are empowered to inquire into complaints lodged against private establishments, including hospitals.
A Division Bench of Justices C.T. Selvam and M.V. Muralidaran issued the ruling while allowing a writ petition filed by MIOT Hospitals, Manapakkam. The petitioner had challenged the State Human Rights Commission’s (SHRC) decision to inquire into a complaint lodged by a widow, U. Jaya, who claimed that she was promised ₹2.5 lakh for selling her kidney, but was paid only ₹40,000 after the transplantation was carried out in February 2001. Holding that human rights commissions could probe into complaints made against public servants alone, the judges pointed out that another Division Bench had also taken a similar view in 2005. In that case, the court had pointed out that Section 12 (a) of the Protection of Human Rights Act of 1993 empowered the commissions to inquire into (i) violations of human rights or abetment thereof, and (ii) negligence in the prevention of such violation by a public servant.
Though subclause (i) did not contain the words “by a public servant”, the court had held that the term would govern both the subclauses. “A perusal of Section 18 shows that the commissions can take action in a matter where the inquiry discloses violation of human rights or negligence in the prevention of such violation by a public servant. Thus, the ambiguity, if any, in Section 12(a) of the Act gets removed by perusing Section 18 of the Human Rights Act,” the court had said.
The Bench also fortified its conclusion by relying upon Form A appended to the Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission (Procedure) Regulations of 1997 and pointing out that it required complainants to fill in the names and designations of public servants who had either violated human rights or failed to prevent such violations. “Thus, a perusal of the provisions of the Act and the forms clearly indicates that the Act deals with violation of human rights by a public servant and not others,” it added.
Limitation period
“We find ourselves in respectful agreement with the view expressed in the decision of the Division Bench of this court reported in 2005,” the Division Bench led by Mr. Justice Selvam said, adding that the complaint against MIOT Hospitals also suffered from laches, since it had been lodged only in 2003. The judges pointed out that the commission could not take on file a complaint made after the expiry of one year since the date on which the act constituting a violation of human rights was allegedly committed.
Though counsel representing the SHRC contended that the period of limitation would begin only from the day on which the aggrieved party had discovered the fraud with reasonable diligence, the judges refused to accept the argument. They said a plain reading of Section 36 (2) of the Act was categorical on the limitation period, and did not provide for an interpretation as projected by the commission before the court.