NT NETWORK
PANAJI
The Goa Human Rights Commission received 292 complaints against erring government employees in the year 2013-14, and more than 60 per cent of these complaints were made against police inaction and “atrocities”.
Most of the cases received during the period from April 2013 to March 2014 were relating to police inaction, illegal detention and torture.
The remaining cases were pertaining to non-payment of pension and salaries by other public functionaries.
During the period from April, 2013 to March, 2014, the commission received 315 complaints, of which 292 came from individuals and NGO activists. And the rest 23 cases were from the suo motu cognizance taken by the panel.
The commission has so far disposed of 156 complaints while the remaining 136 are being scrutinized and investigated.
The primary duty of the GHRC is to ensure that human rights are respected and that no citizen’s human rights are violated, especially by the action of public servants.
It has been the practice of the GHRC to issue notices to the concerned authorities who in most cases are local police, SP and DGP seeking action taken report or to provide the commission with detailed report on the matter.
In most cases, the police officials or concerned civil authorities submit the required report as demanded by the GHRC, often well after the original deadline set by the commission.
There has been a general trend in police responses to the GHRC. In several cases, the police completely or substantially deny the allegations made by the complainant. They often dismiss the complaints as frivolous presuming that the complaints are made because of previous enmity between the parties or for getting bail.
A single bench of three-member commission when chaired by the then chairman Justice (retd) P K Misra witnessed several instances of police being callous.
A complaint filed on June 13, 2013 by one Maximiano Paes alleged that on the intervening night of July 6 and 7, 2011 he and his wife were brutally assaulted resulting in the death of his wife and leaving him in trauma for six days.
The commission found that shoddy investigation had been carried out by the Verna police and that there had been lethargic approach of supervisory officers leading to miscarriage of justice. Hence the panel suggested the state government to hand over the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation or the crime branch for thorough interrogation.
Yet in another case, the panel was dissatisfied with the police investigation in kidnapping of a four-year-old boy.
The commission on July 2014 gave an interim measure for transfer of investigation into the kidnapping case from the Vasco police station to the crime branch.
The mother of a missing child had approached the commission in 2013 seeking transfer of the case to the CBI after the Vasco police failed to trace the child who had gone missing in 2011.
These are several other human rights violations in the state where the police behaved according to their whims and fancies.
In a case received in June 29, 2013, the commission pulled up the Panaji police for illegally detaining a 73-year-old Jose Octavio Rodrigues in a falsely implicated theft case allegedly taken place in his co-owned house. The panel directed the state government to pay a sum of Rs. 30,000 as immediate interim relief.
The commission also acted upon a case of death in prison. It ordered a payment of Rs 50,000 as compensation to the legal heir of deceased inmate Mahadev Gaonkar who had died of consuming contaminated food. The panel also recommended the state government to provide Rs 2000 each to the prisoners who had been affected by food poisoning at the former central jail at Fort Aguada on May 31 in 2013.