Abstract:
The responsibility for the enforcement of the human rights laws in India lies on
the shoulders of a number of executive and judicial authorities located at various
levels of governments in the country. Indeed, the whole gamut of the human rights
laws need to be put into practice both by the individuals on the one hand and
the governmental agencies on the other. However, given the federal structure of
governance in the country, the responsibility for the protection and promotion
of human rights has been dovetailed into the various agencies functioning at the
central, state and the local levels. But in the routine politico-administrative set up
of the country, the judiciary has been assigned the task of hearing the complaints
of the violation of human rights and providing relief to the people through judicial
pronouncements. In this respect, while Article 32 of the Constitution of India
empowers the Supreme Court, the high courts draw their authority from Article
226 of the Indian Constitution. Thus, while at the apex of the administrative
structure an exclusive Human Rights Cell has been set up in the Union Ministry of
Home Affairs in 1993 to coordinate and implement the policies and programmes
on human rights. The Supreme Court stands at the apex of the judicial system
of the country for protecting the human rights of the people from violations on
the part of both the individuals as well as the state agencies. In 1993, with the
creation of the National Human Rights Commission at the Centre and the State
Human Rights Commissions in various states, the governance of human rights in
India gained a new dimension in which cooperative governance become sine quo
non for protection and promotion of the human rights in the country. This article
analyses the promotion of cooperative governance in India drawing on the case of
protection and promotion of human rights.
