Hurling casteist abuses must be in public place or in public view to constitute offence under SC/ST Act: Karnataka High Court

Hurling casteist abuses becomes an offence punishable under the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015 [SC/ST Act] only if it is done in a public place or a place of public view, the Karnataka High Court recently held [Rithesh Pais v. State of Karnataka & Another]..Single-judge Justice M Nagaprasanna observed that in terms of Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act, what is necessary to drive home an offence is that hurling of abuses is done either in a public place or a place of public view. The Court, therefore, quashed a case registered under the SC/ST Act against one Ritesh Pais accused of hurling casteist abuses against one Mohan in a basement of a building.The petitioner had called in question the proceedings pending before the V Additional District & Sessions Judge, DK, Mangalore for offences under the Indian Penal Code and under Sections 3(1)(r), 3(1)(s) and 3(2)(va) of the SC/ST Act.The allegation against the petitioner was that he had hurled abuses at the complainant in the basement of a building where the complainant was working. He also allegedly threatened the complainant and obstructed the construction activity going on in the building.All the witnesses including the complainant were co-employees of one Jayakumar R Nair. The contention of the petitioner was that the petitioner had earlier instituted a civil suit against Nair and an order of injunction was operating against Nair in that suit. Nair had, therefore, set up his employee to file the present case in order to settle score against the petitioner, it was contended.It was further argued that the alleged casteist abuses were hurled in a basement where no passerby was present.The counsel for the complainant, however, contended that the incident took place in front of other employees who are witnesses in the case..After examining the rival arguments, the bench noted that two factors that had to be kept in mind were that the basement of the building was not a place of public view and only persons who claim to be present were the complainant and other employees of Jayakumjar R Nair or friends of the complainant.Therefore, hurling of abuses was clearly not in a place of public view or a public place for the provisions of the SC/ST Act to be get attracted, the bench held.In this regard, the Court placed reliance on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Hitesh Verma v. State of Uttarakhand in which the top court had interpreted the same provisions invoked against the petitioner in the present case, and explained the scope of 'public place' and 'public view'.Applying the same, the bench quashed the proceedings pending before the V Additional District and Session Judge and noted that, permitting further proceeding to continue would degenerate into harassment and result in miscarriage of justice..The petitioner was represented by Senior Counsel Sandesh Chouta and advocate Lakshmikanth G while respondents were represented by Ajay Prabhu, BS Sachin and High Court Government Pleader KS Abhijit..[Read Order]