Inaugurating two-day open hearing of complaints of atrocities against Scheduled Castes here today.
Justice K.G. Balakrishnan said that it is disheartening to note that despite enabling laws, complaints of violations of Dalits rights have not gone down. Justice Balakrishnan said that NHRC is not focused only on criminal cases but also more on the social upliftment of the Scheduled Castes which if is taken care of well by the State the number of crime rate will automatically go down.
Justice Balakrishnan said that NHRC does not have an adversarial role to the functioning of the governments; its interventions amount only to help the state in good governance to ensure promotion and protection of human rights.
During the open hearing Chief Secretary of Rajasthan C.K. Mathew admitted that Rajasthan has registered a high number of cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes and problems relating to them but the conviction rate has been low for various reasons. He said that government have taken several measures to address their problems and 18 districts having Scheduled Castes population have been identified has trouble prone.
The aim of open hearing is to sensitize the official machinery. According to an estimate, Rajasthan reported the highest rate of crime of 7.6 per cent against the Scheduled Castes as compared to the national average of 2.8 per cent in the year 2011.
For this open hearing, NHRC received about 300 complaints on alleged violations of Dalits rights in Rajasthan, out of which 115 have been short-listed for hearing by the NHRC Members .The complaints today heard by the Commission mostly pertain to delay in release of scholarship, denial of benefits of social welfare schemes, police inaction and poor investigation among others.