New Delhi: Justice (retired) KG Balakrishnan on Monday completed his tenure as the sixth and longest serving chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Justice Balakrishnan had joined the commission as its chairperson on June 7, 2010 after his retirement as the Chief Justice of India.
During his tenure, Justice Balakrishnan was instrumental in charting out several new initiatives towards promotion and protection of human rights in the country and laid a lot of emphasis on increasing the outreach of the commission to build awareness about human rights.
One of his major initiatives was starting `open hearings` of the complaints on the problems of scheduled castes and atrocities against them in different states of the country. He also restarted the
practice of NHRC`s `camp sittings` in different states to dispose of pending cases in the presence of government authorities.
He also promoted national level consultations with the different stakeholders on various issues of human rights to form consensus on recommendations to the government. During his tenure, more than 40 such conferences, seminars and colloquium were organised by the NHRC.
Justice Balakrishnan also instituted awards for encouraging original writing in Hindi on human rights issues. A short film award scheme to recognize creative work in the field of human rights was also
introduced during his tenure.
