The story of Professor G.N. Saibaba is unique and heart-wrenching. A former English professor at the University of Delhi, a person with 90% disability and bound to a wheelchair, yet labelled an urban naxal by the state. Saibaba’s disability did not stop him from fighting for the rights of Adivasis. Like the fate of many other human rights defenders (HRDs) in India, he was falsely implicated in a case and subjected to a long incarceration, despite two acquittals in the same case by the Bombay high court.
The prison conditions affected his health, which led to his death a few months after his release from jail. His death marks the failure of our judiciary, the government, prison authorities and the police. Most importantly, it is the failure of an independent body with a mandate to protect and promote human rights – the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Despite several appeals to the NHRC regarding Saibaba, the commission found every reason to dismiss them.
Human Rights Defenders Alert (HRDA) is a network that initiates action on behalf of HRDs under threat or with security concerns. The HRDA filed several complaints in this case before the NHRC but none reached their intended outcome. On September 13, 2013, the police raided Saibaba’s residence inside Delhi University and put his whole family under house arrest in different rooms for around four hours, even threatening his daughter.
The HRDA filed an urgent appeal (Case No. 6191/30/4/2013) with the NHRC, praying for inquiry, protection and to ensure that no false criminal case is registered against Saibaba. No proper action was taken and the complainant was not heard for a year. Instead, the case was linked with one filed by Saibaba’s wife, Ms Vasantha, after his arrest on May 9, 2014 (Case No.2850/30/4/2014). The commission sought arrest documents and Saibaba’s medical reports and directed the Nagpur prison authorities to provide adequate medical treatment to him. The NHRC found the arrest documents to be proper despite a discrepancy in the place of arrest and said it found no reason to pursue the complaint and closed the case saying ‘no further action required’.
On June 19, 2015, the HRDA filed a second urgent appeal with the NHRC regarding his poor living conditions in prison. He was lodged in an ‘Anda’ barrack of Nagpur prison and went on a hunger strike on April 11, 2015 to demand proper medical treatment and food. The HRDA prayed for an independent investigation into his prison conditions, appointment of non-official visitors and action against the prison authorities. However, the NHRC dismissed the appeal. On January 2, 2016, the HRDA filed a third urgent appeal with the NHRC regarding the violation of his right to bail and inhumane treatment in jail, despite his disability. The HRDA requested independent prison visits, an investigation into false charges, NHRC’s intervention in accordance with Section 16 of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 concerning his solitary confinement, compensation for the HRD and intervention in the bail petition before the Supreme Court. The NHRC clubbed this case with another case filed by one Yogesh Mahajan from Delhi (Case No.2428/13/17/2015) and ordered DG prisons to investigate the prison conditions. The HRDA case was closed by the NHRC on January 27, 2020 stating that the report from the prison showed otherwise and that the complainant could not substantiate the case.
The most ironic aspect of the NHRC’s failure comes here. Retired Indian Administrative Officer (IAS) S. Jalaja, who was once NHRC’s joint secretary and had served as the NHRC’s special rapporteur, studied Maharashtra prisons and submitted a report on July 17, 2017. The report revealed harsh truths about the Nagpur prison where Saibaba was detained. These included staff shortage and overcrowding of prisoners among other things. She specifically noted Saibaba’s poor medical condition and recommended that “an independent medical team from AIIMS should assess his condition.” This NHRC report directly contradicted the investigation report submitted to the commission in the cases filed by the HRDA. While the NHRC relied on the investigation report provided by the police, it chose to overlook its own special rapporteur’s report on the prison where Saibaba was detained. If the prison had adequately met his needs, his health would not have deteriorated so severely as to endanger his life. This issue was central to the HRDA’s fourth and fifth appeals, filed in 2022 and 2024, concerning prison conditions and compensation respectively.
In addition to these appeals by the HRDA, there were several complaints filed by different activists in this case, all of which were closed in a similar fashion. Even the international community appealed to the Indian government to take proper action in this case on several occasions, including The UN special rapporteurs who issued statements in 2019 and in 2023. None of this prompted the NHRC to act.
More recently, on October 17, 2024, The UN special rapporteur on HRDs referred to Saibaba and said,”There are so many violations against human rights defenders in India and we saw the disabled human rights defender released after [10] years last march and he died last week. He was acquitted but he was left in prison all these years. So India should clean up [its] act”.
Despite the international community – and even individuals within the NHRC – becoming aware of the poor prison conditions that contributed to Saibaba’s deteriorating health, it was disheartening for an institution with such a mandate to simply dismiss these concerns. The NHRC and its former chairpersons – Justices K.G. Balakrishnan, Cyric Joseph, H.L. Dattu, Arun Kumar Mishra and Vijaya Bharathi Sayani – are answerable to this democracy for the institution’s wilful silence on Saibaba’s mistreatment. They all owe an apology to the people of this country for failing to exercise their powers to prevent the death of a dedicated academician who devoted his life to civil liberties and the socio-economic and cultural rights of India’s vulnerable populations.
Henri Tiphagne is the National Working Secretary of Human Rights Defenders Alert, India. Edgar Kaiser is a lawyer at the HRDA.