'Government has already provided a lot of subsidies and health packages for them. But due to the lack of responsibility and commitment, these plans are not implemented properly in Attapaddy'

Justice J.B Koshy
Photo: Navya Frederik Pereira

Justice Jacob Benjamin Koshy is the Chairman of Kerala Human Rights Commission. He is a former Chief Justice of Patna High Court and former Acting Chief Justice of Kerala High Court.

He obtained his undergraduate and post graduate degrees in Law from Government Law College, Ernakulam. 

Given below is the transcript of his interview with Lesley Rajan.

Qn: Sir, the number of harthals are increasing tremendously. Does it affect the whole people? According to the chief minister of Kerala, protest against a scam of 10 crore itself made a loss of more than 100 crores. How does human rights commission react to this problem, which affects a large population?

Ans : Human Rights Commission has passed an order against the  harthals as High court and Supreme Court  said that forced harthal is equivalent to  bandh . Government should compensate for the destruction for public and private property and should claim the money from those who has announced for the harthal ; the commission  has ordered . Harthals is mainly utilized by thugs and in spite prevailing public will.

Qn: Atrocities against children are increasing very widely. Sir, what all steps you have taken?

Ans: Certainly there are many laws against the atrocities towards children. In the case of Shafik from Kumily, the chief minister had directly taken action, when there is no action took from the part of government commission will interfere in that case. Main reason behind these child assaults are illicit liquor and alcohol. This will urge them to do these acts. Despite, we conduct many effective seminars and rehabilitation classes for the people against child abuses.   These rehabilitation programs and classes can decrease crime to an extent only, so the government officials should take action against these criminal acts. Laws only can’t control the crime rate, for example rape has been given even capital punishment, and also there are many laws but still yet rape occurs in many parts of the country in a high rate. Same in the case of murder, yet these crimes happens, a sad fact.

Qn: Recently we have seen many photos and videos are published in Medias against the accused persons. Here, are these publications amongst to defamation, since they are not convicted and if the court acquits them they lose the dignity in the society. This is a human rights violation, what you say about this?

Ans: Honourable Supreme Court and High Court ordered that Media Trials are unlawful. In this case Court has to decide, so I don’t want to comment.

Qn: Sir, you had said that, “Mullaperiyar issue is not a societal issue’’ Sir, Can you explain it?

Ans: Actually, it’s not what I said. For studying Mullaperiyar issue Supreme Court appointed an expert committee. I said people have to express their opinion about Mullaperyar issue was neither by picketing and hartals nor abusing Tamilians. It’s not the right way of doing. They should have given the evidence to the expert committee later, when the Supreme Court asks evidence they requested for time and Supreme Court did not allowed it, because the time has been over. Things should be done in the way they are meant to do.

QN: Recently P. K Jayalakshmi, minister of scheduled tribes, has recently said that alcoholism among the mothers was reason for new-born death in Attapaddy. As human rights chairman what’s your opinion?

Ans: Alcohol is one of the many reasons for such situation. I had visited Attapaddy and studied the conditions prevailing there. Government has already provided a lot of subsidies and health packages for them. But due to the lack of responsibility and commitment, these plans are not implemented properly in Attapaddy. The second reason is that the money among the women in Attapaddy. These women work very hard and earn money and it’s taken away by the men and given in Toddy shops. Illicit liquor is very common in Attapaddy. Married women are very affected by malnutrition. The rice available for subsidies to BPL families is resold in double price for buying Alcohol. These subsidies do not reach the family. According to the government scheme, the tribal people in Attapaddy have the right to get Medicines, Ambulance and other services. But the officers are irresponsible in providing these schemes. The main reason is the apartheid from the part of civil servants. Government has been spending more that Rs 10,000 per family in Attapaddy in every month. Alcoholism is worst habit and it destroys everything. There are woman who use Alcohol in Attapaddy. Another problem in Attapaddy is the child marriage. A woman of 16year old became pregnant 4 times. Child marriage is the foremost reason, why these minor mothers can’t bring up their children, and infant death increases. In these days sickle cell anaemia is very common there and National human rights commission has already taken case of this and we are not interfering in this.

QN: We heard “Retired Judges are always appointed as the head of the commission”. Sir what’s the truth about that?

Ans: Everyone has there own reasons. I have 27 years of experience as an advocate. After that I had been judge for a term of 13 years. I got training in this way that, when ruling party was Congress and when I wrote some judgments people said I am communist and when the left party ruled they said I am congress party supporter. So I don’t ear what people say and got trained to write a judgments impartially and unaffected by external forces. I have these skills and if I didn’t help government, and if I didn’t work as a judge it’s a huge loss to the government and the people. After I got retired I got pension 50% of the salary. I did not do anything for a term 6 months. In that time I got more income due to many people came for legal advice and arbitration. So I paid more income tax return. According to the protection of human right Act, 1993 the head of the human rights commission must be a retired chief justice. And in Kerala  he/she must be below 70 years of age. So then I was the only retired chief justice who knows Malayalam. There was no other option. Before the appointment I was working as the Appellate Tribunal of Money Laundering Act in Delhi. Then I got a request from Kerala, appointed as the Human Rights Commission Chairman. 90% of the orders are giving in Malayalam. The order must understand and convinced by the people. So, other state Judge cannot give judgment in Malayalam and there was no other option. So I accepted that request. If I did not accept it I would not get this much criticism from the Medias. If I worked as a legal adviser I would get more money still, I am doing this as a service.

QN:  As a retired Chief Justice, what do the reason behind the verdict of the Honorable Supreme Court about the disqualification of MP or MLA if they are convicted?

Ans: If a person is charged in a case they can also contest in election. The verdict says that the convicted people cannot contest in election. If a person is acquitted, he can contest in election. The prisoner who has been in prison more than 2 years, if that person filed an appeal, he/she can contest in election before the validity of the appeal expires. But the Supreme Court disagreed with that because when a prisoner files an appeal, the punishment is only stayed but conviction is there. The reason is that if a person has a criminal mentality and elected, when he rule he cannot control the crime, he also engages. In a country the security of people is the 1^st priority. So there would not be any problem with regarding the security concern of the people. For example if a person convicted for corruption, he is more likely to do that again. So if a corrupt person becomes a minister there is more probability for a corrupt ruling. I am not criticizing the verdict of the Supreme Court. What Supreme Court said is the law.

QN: What are the strategies of Human Rights Commission towards the society?

Ans: We must prevail Indian law when implementing that laws we will check whether there is human rights violation. If there is violation we will charge against them.

QN: Is there any compensation for the cases of human rights violation? Does the commission assure that parties get the compensation?

Ans: Government gives compensation. After I took the charge, most of the cases have been settled and had given compensation to the parties. Even in some cases we gave compensation directly to the parties. Others were given to the District Collector and ask the parties to collect compensation from the Collector. The complete compensation was given by the government. The government will take this money from the parties who violated the human rights.

QN:  Education bandhs are getting so common; here Right to Educate is getting violated by some student organization. As Human Rights Commission, what’s your opinion?

Ans: As I have already said that bandh and hartal violates the Fundamental Rights. Education bandh also a bandh. No one has the right to restrain others. I have the right not to go for classes, but nobody have the right to restrain me from education.

QN: Sir, what all changes you have made, when you took the charge of the commission?

Ans:. We conduct a lot of seminars with regard of human rights violation. We launch bulletin in every two months Before I took the charge, nobody didn’t know about Human Rights Commission. When I had taken the charge, the news regarding with human right commission is increased. So that our criticism also increased. When took the charge, there were almost 2002 uncleared files are there. Soon I finished that files. Nowadays almost 30 cases are charged daily. Some cases will not come in our jurisdiction, so we close that, others we will report and take action