The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ‘Collectors dragging feet on human rights’

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Thursday, Jul 02, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

‘Collectors dragging feet on human rights’

M. Malleswara Rao

Failure by Collectors to submit magisterial enquiry reports to courts
Many families whose members died can get monetary and other benefits

HYDERABAD: District Collectors appear to have been dragging their feet on human rights, though perhaps performing well on other fronts.

Justice has been denied to a number of families in the State following failure by Collectors so far to submit magisterial enquiry reports (MER) to courts or human rights commissions on 510 cases, relating to custodial deaths, encounters with naxalites and police firings, resulting in deaths or injuries.

Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s slogan these days has been to improve the delivery system but efforts by Collectors on submission of MERs are distressingly found wanting, a senior police official lamented, recalling a Supreme Court directive of 2001, fixing a four-month time-limit for authorities to file the MERs before the courts and commissions for timely disposal of justice.

Had the Collectors discharged this mandatory responsibility, many families whose members died in police firings/custody or in encounters, fake or genuine, would have secured monetary and other benefits under the existing rules.

A study revealed that revenue authorities, from Collectors down to MRO, handled this human rights issue in a cavalier manner, thereby keeping justice to these families at bay.

There are a record number of 478 police firings in the State since 1998, including encounters, on which no MERs have not been submitted till date. Similarly, the Collectors have not done their duty regarding as many as 32 custodial deaths. However, in case of Basheerbagh and Mudigonda firings, reports have been submitted by judicial commissions exonerating the police. Karimnagar and Warangal districts, where encounters took place periodically till recently, accounted for 179 police firings and 66 respectively. Collectors of the two districts have not yet responded despite reminders by the General Administration Department to submit reports. Guntur topped in custodial deaths with 8. A senior official in the GAD told this correspondent that Collectors have also been found wanting in rehabilitating surrendered naxalites. Right now, 401 surrendered cases are pending before them for rehabilitation and 91 of them in Adilabad.

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Andhra Pradesh