Curb tendency of implicating people in SC/ST Act cases: Punjab and Haryana High Court

Tribune News Service

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, December 3

In a significant judgment liable to prevent false implication of people in cases under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has called for curbing the tendency of giving disputes under the IPC the colour of an offence under the special statute.

Justice Ashok Kumar Verma asserted that strange as it might appear, strictly speaking, the common tendency and frequency of complainants in involving and roping in the accused with vague and bald allegations under Section 3 of the SC & ST Act were tremendously increasing by the day.

Justice Verma said even plain and simple occurrences under the IPC were given the colour of an offence under Section 3 of the special Act by adding false and vague allegations. “This tendency needs to be curbed. If not discouraged and in the wake of over-enthusiasm and anxiety to take revenge of a civil dispute by involving the accused in such false criminal cases, it will ultimately weaken the true cases of the prosecution as well even those against the real culprits. The very object and purpose of the Act will pale into insignificance…,” Justice Verma added.

Justice Verma was hearing an appeal against an order, dated May 23, passed by an Additional Sessions Judge, whereby the application filed by two accused for grant of anticipatory bail in a case registered on April 13 for house trespass and other offences under Sections 323, 452, 506 and 34 of the IPC, along with Section 3 of the SC & ST Act, was dismissed.

The Bench was told that there were specific allegations against the appellants in the FIR. They abused the complainant with the name of his caste, inflicted injuries and threatened him. Justice Verma asserted that the dispute between the parties was regarding the parking of a vehicle by the complainant in front of the appellants’ house.

It was nowhere mentioned in the complaint that the appellants-accused were not members of the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes; they knew that the complainant was a member of the same; they intentionally insulted or intimidated the complainant with the intent to humiliate him at a place within public view.

Justice Verma added that the complaint/FIR was required to disclose the caste of the offenders and the fact that the appellant-accused were aware about the complainant’s caste as well. The element of intentional insult or intimidation with intent to humiliate a member of the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribe in public view should clearly be borne out from the FIR.

Allowing the appeal, Justice Verma added that the alleged utterance appeared to be a result of a fit of anger and emotion and not with the intention to insult the complainant as a member of the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes.

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