People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)

What it is: The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) is a civil liberties organisation in India. By its own account it began as the People's Union for Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights (PUCLDR), a loosely organised group working with Jayaprakash Narayan. A national seminar on 17 October 1976, opened by Acharya J. B. Kripalani, elected V. M. Tarkunde president and Krishan Kant general secretary. After the Emergency ended and the Janata Party came to power in 1977, the group's energy faded, and Narayan died on 8 October 1979. In 1980, with Indira Gandhi back in power, activists agreed that the body should stay non-partisan. A founding conference in November 1980 renamed it PUCL, adopted a constitution and made it a membership organisation, with Tarkunde as president and Arun Shourie as general secretary. Under that constitution members of political parties cannot hold office in it, party members may be no more than half of any executive committee, and no single party may hold more than 10 per cent.

Leaders: Tarkunde was president in 1976 and 1980, with Krishan Kant and then Arun Shourie as general secretary. Its office bearers page lists Kavita Srivastava as president and V. Suresh as general secretary for 2022 to 2024.

Key moments

• 31 October to 10 November 1984: PUCL and the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) held a joint inquiry in Delhi. Their report Who Are the Guilty? appeared in November 1984, with a second edition in December. Its subtitle spoke of "riots", but it concluded that the violence was not spontaneous.
• The report said the attacks were the outcome of a well organised plan, with deliberate acts and omissions by important Congress (I) politicians at the top and by the administration. It estimated that more than a thousand had been killed, mostly men aged 20 to 50, against an official figure of 325 to 7 November that it called ridiculously low. It asked what the government did in the seven hours between Indira Gandhi's assassination and the announcement of her death, and why troops were not called in.
• 1985: the Misra Commission rejected the applications of PUCL and PUDR to take part in its inquiry, according to Ensaaf. The Citizens Justice Committee became the victims' recognised representative instead.
• August 1987: the Ahooja committee put the official count of the dead in Delhi at 2,733, a figure far above the 325 that PUCL had called too low.

Where it stands: PUCL calls itself the largest human rights organisation in India, with branches in almost every state. It investigates violations, publishes the findings in its Bulletin and files petitions in the courts, which its lawyer members argue at their own cost. Its 1984 report, produced within weeks of the killings, is among the earliest civil society records of them.