Ask where a human rights complaint in India goes, and the answer comes back instantly: "the Human Rights Commission." It's the most common answer and it's only half right. That gap between the common answer and the complete one is exactly what the Supreme Court's recent judgment in Sayad Asifulla v. State of Karnataka (2026 INSC 964) clarifies.

The Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 is built two separate mechanisms for protecting human rights in India and it's easy to conflate them:

Human Rights Commissions at National and State Level - Sections 12 to 18 of the Protection of Human Rights Act,1993 prescribes the functions and powers of the Human Rights Commissions and the manner in which complaints of human rights violations may be inquired into and investigated. Section 18 further empowers the Commission, during or upon completion of such inquiry, to recommend, inter alia, initiation of proceedings for prosecution or such other suitable action as it may deem fit.

The Human Rights Commissions are a recommendatory body, and it only makes a recommendation to the concerned authority or Government for enforcement of its recommendation. It has no adjudicatory jurisdiction. They investigate and can recommend prosecution, disciplinary action, or compensation, but they do not have the power to convict, sentence, or conduct a criminal trial.

Human Rights Courts - The Human Rights Court, created under Section 30 of PHRA, 1993, is a Court of Session in each district, specially designated (with the concurrence of the Chief Justice of the High Court) to try offences arising out of human rights violations. It functions as a judicial body, trying the case, examining evidence, and delivering a verdict, the way any Sessions Court would for a criminal trial.

Facts of the case and what transpired in Supreme Court

In 2023, Sayad Asifulla, himself an accused in a criminal case, alleged that police officials in Vijayapura, Karnataka, violated his human rights while he was in custody. He didn't file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission. He walked into a Human Rights Court, set up under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, and filed a private complaint before the Principal District and Sessions Judge and Special Judge, Human Rights Court, Vijayapura, under a state procedural rule, Rule 6 of the Karnataka State Human Rights Courts Rules, 2006.

The court ordered a police investigation under Section 156(3) of Cr.P.C, 1973. A case was registered against the concerned Police officers. The officers challenged Rule 6 itself in the Karnataka High Court, arguing it was unconstitutional and beyond the state's rule-making power. The High Court agreed, struck down the rule, and quashed the entire case. The Supreme Court Overturned the judgement passed by Karnataka High Court.

The Karnataka High Court had effectively treated the Commission as a mandatory first stop reading the statute as if a victim needed a Commission inquiry and recommendation before a Human Rights Court could even take up the matter. On that logic, Rule 6 of the Karnataka State Human Rights Courts Rules, 2006 which lets a victim go straight to the Human Rights Court, was struck down and held as inconsistent with the statute.

The Supreme Court rejected the reasoning in full held that, the Commission and the Court are parallel and complementary tracks, not sequential ones. Nothing in Sections 12-18 of PHRA, 1993 makes a Commission recommendation a precondition for prosecution. The Section 30 does not make the Court's jurisdiction dependent on any prior Commission proceedings.

A state's procedural rule enabling direct access to the Human Rights Court (like Rule 6) does not create a new offence or a rogue jurisdiction, it merely operationalizes the trial mechanism Parliament already provided. In the Court's own words on the point of reading in extra conditions: doing so "would amount to supplying a condition which Parliament itself has not enacted."

So which one do you approach? This is the practical question the judgment answers, and it depends on what you need:

Go to the Human Rights Commission when:

You want an independent inquiry into an incident of rights violation, especially where the inaction may involve systemic or administrative failure and you are seeking action, compensation, policy-level recommendations, or disciplinary action against officials, rather than a necessarily a criminal trial or prosecution. You don't yet have a specific criminal offence to point to, you have a grievance that needs to be investigated to find out what happened, so you want the reach of a national body, or your state has no functioning Human Rights Court.

Go directly to the Human Rights Court when:

A specific criminal offence has already occurred at the hands of a public servant acting under colour of office. For example, custodial violence, illegal detention, or abuse in state custody.

You not only want a police investigation ordered and but a prosecution to actually proceed to trial, not just a recommendation. Your state has notified Human Rights Courts and framed rules (as Karnataka has) enabling direct private complaints.

Will Parallel Proceedings Amount to Double Jeopardy?

The judgment makes clear that a Commission inquiry and a Human Rights Court trial can proceed side by side without raising any double jeopardy concern. This is because a Commission's inquiry or recommendation is not, a prior prosecution or punishment; it is only an investigative and advisory step, not an adjudication of guilt. Since there is no earlier conviction or punishment on record, the protection against double jeopardy is never actually triggered, and a Human Rights Court trial arising from the same facts is not barred. Pursuing one track is therefore not double jeopardy for pursuing the other, and a party is not required to choose between the two exclusively.

Why this matters

Before this ruling came, a victim who mistakenly believed the Commission was the only route or who was told so by a lawyer applying the (now-overturned) High Court's reasoning, could have spent months waiting on a non-binding recommendation instead of directly triggering an investigation and a trial. Worse, an accused public servant could exploit the same confusion, as happened here, to get a properly filed criminal case erased on the argument that the "wrong door" was used.

Case: Sayad Asifulla v. State of Karnataka & Ors., Criminal Appeal No. 4075 of 2026 with connected appeal, Supreme Court of India, decided 25 August 2026 (Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, JJ.).

Author is an Advocate practicing at Muktsar, Punjab, and Delhi. Views are personal.