The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken note that 9,000 cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 were pending in the State.
Briefing the media on the two-day open hearing/camp sitting organised by the NHRC here, commission chairman H.L. Dattu said that the number of cases was slightly on the higher side.
“We’ll take up the matter at the earliest. And if we find that there is some violation of cognizance of the POCSO Act, we will take appropriate steps and make recommendations to expedite the cases,” he said.
The commission had concluded that human rights violations were relatively low in Kerala, Mr. Dattu said.
Tribal resettlement issues
“I feel there is no serious problem in Kerala and human rights violations are not too many. There are a few issues — mainly to do with tribal resettlement. Beyond that, we could find nothing much from those cases which have come before us and those which the NGOs brought to our notice,” he said.
NGOs, which met the commission on Friday, complained about problems pertaining to parenting in the State, increase in use of mobile phones among schoolchildren and the use of school students for peddling drugs, Mr. Dattu said.
At the two-day open hearing/camp sitting, the commission had considered issues pertaining to atrocities faced by SC/ST communities in Kerala and Lakshadweep.
96 cases
In all, 96 cases were considered in four Single Bench sittings on Thursday.
The commission also closed a number of cases after studying the action-taken reports filed by the authorities. This included a case pertaining to the physical torture of a first standard student where the commission had recommended ₹25,000 as monetary relief. On Friday, the commission took up five cases in a full bench sitting.
The commission also met NGOs and State government officials, including Chief Secretary Tom Jose and State Police Chief Loknath Behera.
