NHRC seeks report from CBI on probe against LC, Grover

New Delhi: The NHRC has written to the Director of the CBI, seeking a status report on the investigation into the case registered against human rights NGO Lawyers Collective, it's president and eminent lawyer Anand Grover, and other unnamed officials of the organisation. In a statement issued on Friday, the National Human Rights Commission of India sought a report from the probe agency on the investigation within four weeks.

The rights body said it received complaints about the invocation of criminal charges against the NGO and Grover in the case from two human rights bodies namely, the Human Rights Defenders' Alert and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.

The NHRC while acknowledging that alleged violations of the FCRA are outside its purview, said that the complaints it received talk about the CBI registering its case based on a Ministry of Home Affairs inspection conducted in 2016.

While the MHA inspection looked at violations of the FCRA and had following the report, suspended and cancelled the NGO's permit to receive foreign funding, the human rights bodies had written to the NHRC saying that there was no reason to invoke criminal charges as nothing had changed as far as material records are concerned since 2016. While the NHRC admitted it is under the investigative agency's purview, whether to invoke criminal charges, it is also the Commission's responsibility to examine the issue to make it non-discriminatory and to avoid arbitrariness.