Valid Caste Certificate Essential To Prove SC/ST Act Offence; Mere Oral Claim Of Caste Not Enough: Chhattisgarh High Court

For reference- Section 3(1)(r) punishes any person who, not being a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe, intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view.

In the present case, Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas was dealing with an appeal wherein the complainant had initially lodged a complaint stating that he belonged to the SC community and in a dispute regarding construction of a shop on government land, the two appellants/accused abused him by referring to his caste, assaulted him by slapping him, and threatened to kill him. Accordingly, an FIR was registered under Sections 294 (punishment for performing obscene acts), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 506/34 of IPC (criminal intimidation/common intention) and Section 3(1)(r) of 1989 Act. During trial, the Trial Court convicted the accused under Section 294, 506 of IPC and Section 3(1)(r) of the 1989 Act.

When the aggrieved accused/appellants challenged the conviction before the High Court, they submitted that they were falsely implicated, and that the Trial Court failed to appreciate that the caste certificate of the complainant was a temporary one issued by the Tahsildar, who was not the competent authority. They further submitted that the offences under Section 294 and Section 506 IPC were not proved beyond reasonable doubt.

In contrast, the State argued that the caste-certificate issued by the Tahsildar was a valid document and had been properly proved by the prosecution, along with offences under section 294 and 506(2) of IPC.

Referring to Article 341 of the Constitution, the Court deliberated that it is imperative for the prosecution to establish a case that the complainant belongs to a particular caste or parts of groups or races within the caste which falls within the notified Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes to attract charge under Section 3(1)(r) 1989 Act. In the present case, the prosecution had not submitted a valid caste certificate proving that the complainant belonged to a particular caste community, and had only relied on a temporary caste certificate valid for six months from the date of issuance, which was held to not be a legal document to prove the complainant's caste. In this context, the Court held,

“… from the evidence, it cannot be safely held that merely saying by the complainant that he belongs to Harijan caste is not enough, it is required to be proved by cogent and unimpeachable evidence that the complainant falls within the caste, races or tribes or parts of groups notified as Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. In absence thereof, a caste certificate issued by competent authority ought to be produced by the prosecution discharging such burden, therefore, the offence as alleged under Section 3(1)(r) of the Act of 1989 has not been proved by the prosecution.”

The Court emphasised further emphasised that “… it is incumbent upon the prosecution to prove that the complainant belongs to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes community and that the offender does not belong to Scheduled caste or Scheduled Tribes community, therefore, filing of valid caste certificate is sine-qua-non, as it is legal, unimpeachable evidence to prove the caste.”

Accordingly, the Court also held that the alleged use of filthy language was also not proven as no offence under Section 3(1)(r) was made out. Thus, the Court set-aside the conviction of the appellants under Section Section 3(1)(r).

With respect to the offence under Section 294 IPC, the Court referred to the testimonies of the victim and eye-witnesses—- who deposed that the appellants had abused the victim by using filthy language which related to use sexual and lustful words, and since there is no effective cross-examination to rebut the same, the Court upheld the conviction of the appellants under Section 294 IPC.

Notably, the appellants had spent a day in jail and had also deposited the fine amount during bail. As one of the appellants was aged 73 years, and the other was aged 43 years, and owing to the fact that more than 21 years had passed since the occurrence of the incident, the appellant demanded reduction in sentence. Accordingly, the Court held that it was not desirable for the appellants to be incarcerated again, and accordingly held that the sentence of six months awarded to the appellants for commission of offence under Section 294 of IPC was reduced to the period already undergone by the appellants by enhancing the fine amount from Rs. 500/- to Rs. 2,000/- each.

With respect to the offence under Section 506(2), the Court noted that the complainant had nowhere deposed that the Trial Court that accused with intention to cause alarm or compel doing/abstaining had abused the complainant, and thus reiterated that mere utterances of words are not sufficient for successful conviction under Section 506. Accordingly, conviction under Section 506(2) was also set-aside.

Thus, the Court partly allowed the appeal.

Case Details:

Case Number: CRA No. 538 of 2005

Case Title: Milauram and Anr v. The State Of Chhattisgarh

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