NEW DELHI: The national human rights commission and its autonomous counterparts in states have unanimously demanded that the government should define “human rights offences” in the NHRC legislation in order to give the commission greater clarity and teeth. They also dwelt on the need for clarity in the scope of offences being tried at the human rights courts established in the country.Addressing issues that pertain to the running of NHRCs and SHRCs during a day-long meeting convened by NHRC, chairs and members of the rights commission stressed on the need for clarity on the nature of offences that can be tried and the procedure to be followed to try such offences.While members acknowledged that the Supreme Court may fill the lacuna by making guidelines to ensure that human rights courts are guided on which cases to try and how, in the absence of the judgement, they called for the need for clarity.On Thursday, NHRC chairman Justice H L Dattu also asked all state human rights commissions to join its common portal to avoid duplication of complaint registration. Dattu said that in order to expand its outreach, the commission had integrated its online complaint filing system with common service portal of the centre and was encouraging SHRCs to join the HRCNET portal.“Most of the state commissions have joined this portal. I take this opportunity to urge state commissions which are yet to join the portal to do the same at the earliest to avoid duplication of complaint registration on the same issue,” he said.According to another NHRC official, 22 states have joined the portal so far.On Thursday, the members in attendance also said NHRC will recommend to the home ministry to consider amendments to the NHRC Act to clarify the issues raised by the rights commissions through their discussions.