Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) in its annual report presented in the Assembly Friday admitted that it faces staff crunch, and that a large number of cases are pending before it.
The OHRC Annual Report of 2017-18 presented by Law Minister Pratap Jena said the human rights watchdog which had a shortage of 27 staffers against a total sanctioned strength of 69, dealt with several cases of human rights violations in the state.
It said that by the end of the year, the commission had 15,453 cases pending. It also said that it received 5,506 cases during the period and had disposed of 2,280 cases. In the report it has cited several cases where compensations were recommended for cases of human rights violations.
The report claimed that the maximum number of cases received by them related to the police and the paramilitary. It said that a total of 1,827 cases were received from the police and paramilitary.
The second highest number of cases was from women, the annual report of OHRC said.
A detailed analysis of the report revealed that the OHRC did not take a single case suo motu, while it had 49 suo motu cases pending from the previous year.
The report also claimed that of the 2,280 cases resolved by the commission, most are related to women issues followed by cases relating to the police and paramilitary.
The commission in its report on compensations cited the compensation of Rs 5 lakh awarded to a girl who lost left eye vision after being hit by a GI wire inside the hostel of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Chandimal (Bhadrak).
The report said in several cases of compensation payments were halted by cases pending before courts.
