Panel probe not prerequisite criteria for rights cases: Supreme Court

The court upheld Karnataka’s Rule 6, allowing victims, legal representatives and eligible NGOs to directly approach human rights courts.

The Supreme Court has strengthened the hands of human rights courts by ruling that criminal proceedings for offences arising from human rights violations need not be preceded by an inquiry or recommendation from the national or state human rights commission.

The ruling came in a case involving allegations of custodial human rights violations by police officials in Vijayapura. (PTI)

A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said that the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 provides for two distinct and complementary mechanisms — the human rights commissions, which have an inquisitorial and recommendatory role, and human rights courts, which exercise judicial power to try offences arising from human rights violations.

The court held that an inquiry or recommendation by a human rights commission cannot be treated as an “indispensable condition precedent” to initiating criminal proceedings before a human rights court.

“To read such a limitation into the statute would amount to supplying a condition which Parliament itself has not enacted,” said the bench in a judgment released earlier this week.

SC ruling removes procedural hurdle for victims

The ruling is significant as it removes a procedural hurdle that could have made human rights courts dependent on the prior intervention of human rights commissions, thereby preserving a victim’s direct access to the criminal justice mechanism.

The ruling came while setting aside a Karnataka High Court judgment which had struck down Rule 6 of the Karnataka State Human Rights Courts Rules, 2006, and consequently quashed criminal proceedings against police officials accused of violating the human rights of a man in custody.

Custody complaint led to proceedings against police

The case arose after Sayad Asifulla, who was himself an accused in a criminal case registered in Vijayapura, filed a private complaint before the principal district and sessions judge and special judge, Human Rights Court, Vijayapura, alleging violation of his human rights by police officials in connection with his custody.

In January 2024, the human rights court directed investigation under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), following which a case was registered against the police officials.

The officials approached the Karnataka High Court, challenging the proceedings as well as the validity of Rule 6. The high court accepted their plea in July 2025, holding that the rule was unconstitutional and beyond the rule-making power of the state government. It also quashed the criminal case.

The state, through its additional advocate general Avishkar Singhvi, assailed the high court judgment.

Asifulla also contested the ruling.

Human rights commissions and courts have separate roles

The Supreme Court allowed the appeals, pointing out that Sections 12 to 18 of the 1993 Act empower the human rights commissions to inquire into complaints, investigate violations and, where appropriate, recommend prosecution.

But Section 30 separately empowers the state government to designate a court of session in each district as a human rights court for the speedy trial of offences arising out of human rights violations.

There is nothing in Sections 12 to 18 of the 1993 Act making a commission’s recommendation a prerequisite for prosecution, held the bench, adding that Section 30 too does not make the jurisdiction of a human rights court dependent on completion of proceedings before a commission.

Rule 6 permits direct complaints before human rights courts

The court also upheld Rule 6 of the 2006 Rules, which allows a victim, legal representative or, subject to prescribed safeguards, an NGO or public person to approach a human rights court with a complaint against a public servant alleged to have committed or abetted an offence involving violation of human rights.

The rule permits the court either to order a police investigation by an officer not below the rank of superintendent of Police or conduct its own inquiry in accordance with the procedure governing private complaints.

The bench said that the rule did not create a new offence or prescribe a new punishment but merely provided the procedural machinery necessary to invoke the jurisdiction of a human rights court already created under Section 30 of the parent law.

Commission not exclusive gateway for prosecution

The bench rejected the argument that the human rights commission was the exclusive gateway for prosecution. It further noted a Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling, which had recognised that complaints relating to use of force in police stations could be made either to the state human rights commission or the human rights court.

The two remedies, the bench said, were “distinct and complementary” and the human rights commission was not a mandatory gateway to the human rights court.

It also rejected the argument that permitting simultaneous recourse to the commission and the human rights court could result in double jeopardy, noting that an inquiry or recommendation by the commission does not amount to a prior prosecution or punishment.