Under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, the Chairperson of NHRC has to be:

Section 3(2)(a) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, as amended in 2019, requires the Chairperson to be a person who has been Chief Justice of India or a Judge of the Supreme Court. A former Chief Justice of a High Court can be appointed only as a Member under s. 3(2)(c), and a former Attorney General is not eligible.

As originally enacted, s. 3(2)(a) required the Chairperson to be a person "who has been a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court", so the post was then confined to former Chief Justices of India.