We Are Not Against The Act, Innocents Should Not Be Punished: SC, The Number Is Too Small: AG- No Stay For SC/ST Judgment [Read Order]

The Supreme Court bench of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice U. U. Lalit, on the order of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, afforded an urgent hearing on the Centre’s Review Petition in its recent judgment in Dr. Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra at 2 PM on Tuesday.The bench, however, refused to grant an immediate stay on the operation of the judgment, clarifying that compensation under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 may be paid to the victim immediately, even pending the Registration of the FIR.In the light of the aforesaid directions, Attorney General K. K. Venugopal on Tuesday advanced, “These directions will have consequences...in 2016, the Act of 1989 and the Rules framed thereunder were amended...Rule 12(4) (of the Rules of 1995) lays down that the District Magistrate or the Executive Magistrate is to provide relief in cash or in kind within 7 days to the victim of any atrocity under the Act and to their family members, with immediate relief of food, shelter, clothing, medical facilities etc...further, Rule 12(4A) even authorises withdrawal of money from the State Treasury by the magistrate to extend the aforesaid relied...Annexure I in the Schedule appended to the Rules stipulates the minimum amount of relief for each offence...it has perhaps escaped Your Lordships’ attention that there is no outer limit for the compensation...”Thereupon, he indicated the All India data on crimes against the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes under the Act of 1989, the IPC and the Protection of Civil Rights Act of 1955. “Please take a look at the number and nature of the crimes...”, he sought to submit. “The judgment has mentioned a specific period of one week for the preliminary inquiry in respect of offences under the Atrocities Act. In other cases (cases under the IPC, Act of 1955 and other criminal laws), it may even be 15 minutes or 1 hour...”, remarked the bench. “We are not against any complainant or the Act (of 1989)...the judgment only ensures that no one is deprived of their rights and that there is no terror for the innocent...under the Act of 1989, there is no forum or provision of any pre-arrest scrutiny...if there is an apprehension, there should be no difficulty in verifying before putting a person behind the bars...”, continued the bench.When the AG advanced that the Centre’s stand is for no verification at all, the bench said, “but some application of mind is needed before depriving an individual of his right under Article 21...the Lalita Kumari judgment itself envisages preliminary inquiry in certain categories (matrimonial cases, commercial cases, medical negligence cases, corruption cases, cases of abnormal laches)...” “But so far as this class of persons (SC and ST) is concerned, the special law has been enacted because they have been subjected to tremendous prejudice...the number of innocent persons (who are falsely implicated) is very small as compared to the actual cases”, intervened the AG.Referring to the facts of the case dealt with in the impugned judgment, the Attorney General advanced, “the case which came before Your Lordships was ex facie not to be interfered with...entries by superiors in the Annual Confidential Reports (ACR) is the normal procedure...”Thereupon, he relied on the 2016 judgment of the apex court in National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights v. UOI, quoting therefrom- “The Act was made in 1989 because the Parliament found that the provisions of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 were inadequate and did not curb the evil practice of atrocities against Dalits. The grievance of the Petitioners has been that though the Act is comprehensive enough to deal with the social evil, its implementation has been painfully ineffective. The eever-increasingnumber of cases is also an indication to show that there is a total failure on the part of the authorities in complying with the provisions of the Act and the Rules. Placing reliance on the NHRC Report and other reports, the Petitioners sought a mandamus from this Court for effective implementation of the Act and the Rules...We have carefully examined the material on record and we are of the opinion that there has been a failure on the part of the concerned authorities in complying with the provisions of the Act and Rules. The laudable object with which the Act had been made is defeated by the indifferent attitude of the authorities. It is true that the State Governments are responsible for carrying out the provisions of the Act as contended by the counsel for the Union of India. At the same time, the Central Government has an important role to play in ensuring the compliance of the provisions of the Act. Section 21 (4) of the Act provides for a report on the measures taken by the Central Government and State Governments for the effective implementation of the Act to be placed before the Parliament every year. The constitutional goal of equality for all the...

We Are Not Against The Act, Innocents Should Not Be Punished: SC, The Number Is Too Small: AG- No Stay For SC/ST Judgment [Read Order]

Mehal Jain

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