Lawyers for Human Rights International (LFHRI)

Lawyers for Human Rights International (LFHRI) is a human rights group of lawyers based in Chandigarh. Its own site says a loose network of human rights lawyers formed in the early 1980s to defend victims of state repression, and that in 1992, after Punjab police and security agencies began targeting rights defenders, the group formally organised as Lawyers for Human Rights, later renamed Lawyers for Human Rights International. The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty's profile of the group adds that it was first formed to protect lawyers and later became a protector of human rights for the public. Its stated aims are free legal aid for the poor, public interest litigation, and projects to raise public awareness. That profile gives its Chandigarh address as the law office of Navkiran Singh and Associates.

The lawyers' side of the 1990s: Punjab's lawyers were themselves under threat in those years. On 29 May 1994 Navkiran Singh and 16 other advocates of the Punjab and Haryana High Court wrote to the Chief Justice of India about the kidnapping and killing of advocates in Punjab. The Supreme Court treated the letter as a writ petition. In its judgment it ordered the CBI to investigate the kidnapping of advocates Jagwinder Singh and Ranbir Singh Mansahia, and told the state to give security to advocates who genuinely feared danger. The judgment does not name LFHRI; the link is the lawyer's office.

What it does now (from its site)

• A "Stamp out Torture" campaign that monitors police torture cases and helps victims.
• Work with other Indian groups for the abolition of the death penalty. The site carries an appeal against the confirmed death sentence of Prof. Devinderpal Singh Bhullar.
• A call for a Truth Commission, led by retired Supreme Court judges, to examine Punjab from 1984 to 1994.
• Public interest petitions on other matters. On 6 April 2026 the Supreme Court issued notice on one it filed about stray cattle.

Where it stands: It is active in 2026. The site does not name a chairman or president.