HYDERABAD: The Andhra ‘Pradesh High Court has issued a notification for setting up special human rights court in each of the 23 districts in the State 10 try the police and other public servants for human rights violations including the encounter killings, torture and deaths in the police custody.

‘The courts will be headed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate or Chief Metropolitan Magistrates, the notification said.

‘The provision for setting up the district human rights commissions was made in the National Human Rights Commission Act 1993 and for the last three years, the civil liberties organizations were agitating to press the State Government to set up the courts.

‘The move assumes significance in view of the allegations of large number of encounter killings, tor tare and deaths in the police lockup in the State.

National Human Rights Commission is presently looking into a complaint from the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberty Commission against the State police for the killing of nine persons at Palakurthi village of Karimnagar last month. While the police said that these people, including four Naxalites, were killed in a police encounter, the APCLC alleged that they were innocent people killed by the police in cold blood. Mr. K.G. Kannabiran, the president of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) has also filed a writ petition on the killing of 36 persons in November 1994 in police encounters during the preassembly election campaign. The petition is coming up for hearing on Monday before the court.

Mr. Kannabiran and Mr. K. Dalagopal, the general secretary of the APCLC told a press conference on Sunday that while the move to set up the district human rights court was welcome and it was long overdue, they felt that these courts will not be able to serve their purpose. If further steps were not taken subsequently to ensure justice. They suggested that the public prosecutor for these courts should be carefully chosen from among the reputed lawyers who have been fighting the cases of rights violation.

They warned against the transfer of the public prosecutors of ordinary courts to the human rights count saying here the public prosecutors will have to prosecute the State on behalf of the citizens in the cases related to the violation of human rights including life, liberty, human dignity and equality. They also said that these courts will not be able to work effectively and do justice if they do not have their own independent team to investigate the charges of human rights violations against the police officials.

They asked the State Human Rights Commission to create its own independent investigative team to provide assistance to these courts.

Article extracted from this publication >>  February 14, 1996