Parliament adopts Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Bill

New Delhi, Aug 24 (UNI) Parliament today adopted the Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Bill 2006, which makes judges of the Supreme Court with at least three years service eligible to be appointed Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission.

The Bill, which has already been passed in the Rajya Sabha and adopted by the Lok Sabha today by voice vote, also provides for making judges of the High Court with at least five years of serivice to be eligible to be appointed as Chairperson of the State Human Rights Commission.

Replying to the discussion on the Bill, Minister of State for Home Shriprakash Jaisawal conceded that the human rights violations were much more in India than in developed countries. It was ironical that at a time when other countries did not even talk of protecting human rights, the Congress, under the leadership of the legendary Motilal Nehru had -- as early as 1929 -- passed a resolution calling for protection of human rights. ''This showed the awareness India had about protection of human rights long back,'' the Minister said, adding that with this background of awareness, it was hoped India would have good track record of protection of human rights too, but regretted that only 16 states were so far having a Human Rights Commission. ''The Government was trying to see that every state had an human rights commission and is hopeful that in the days to come, every state would have such a body.

Mr Jaiswal said states have been given the liberty to affiliate themseves with Commissions of other states.

Those who participated in the discussion on the Bill included Mr Kirip Chaliha (Congress), Mr Yerran Naidu (TDP), Mamta Banerjee (Trinamool), CPI-M's Varkala Radhakrishnan, Shiv Sena's Suresh Prabhu(SS), Mr Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM), Samajwadi Party's Mohan Singh, Nikhil Kumar (Congress), Ms V Radhika Selvi (DMK), Vijoy Krishna (RJD), Ajoy Chakraborty (CPI), Archana Nayak (BJD), Sumitra Mahajan (BJP), Dr Sujan Chakraborty (CPI-M) and Congress' Adhir Chowdhury.

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