SC/ST Act: Tanwar demands amendment in 9th Schedule

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 7

State Congress president Ashok Tanwar today said that a review petition in the Supreme Court against its order on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act would not help the cause of Dalits. He demanded an amendment to the 9th Schedule of the Constitution for this. He was addressing mediapersons in the Congress Bhawan here today.

Tanwar alleged that even under the existing provisions of the Act, Dalits were not able to get justice for atrocities against them, and if the accused are not arrested before inquiry, as ordered by the Supreme Court, the law would lose its teeth.

He said that since the Supreme Court had already given its verdict on the issue, a review petition before it would not be of any use. It was up to Parliament now to bring an amendment to the 9th schedule for making the Act immune to judicial scrutiny.

He said that if the BJP government fails to act, the Congress would start a Jail Bharo Andolan across the state. He alleged that the police committed excesses on Dalit youths during the Bharat Bandh on April 2 and booked around 8,000 persons in Haryana alone in “fake cases” of violence.

He said that the Congress had decided to observe April 9 as “Sampardayik Sohardya” (communal harmony) Diwas and party workers in all 22 districts of the state would observe fast.

Tanwar said that the Congress on Saturday called a meeting of Dalit leaders to chalk out a strategy on the issue. He threatened that Dalit leaders would not attend government functions on Ambedkar Jayanti on April 14 and instead would hold programmes themselves to safeguard the interests of SCs, STs and Adivasis.

Tanwar said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other senior leaders would address a Jan Akrosh rally at Ramlila Ground in Delhi on April 29.