Alleged act of insult, intimidation not offence under SC/ST Act unless committed in public view: Allahabad HC [Read order]

The Allahabad High Court recently reiterated that an alleged act of intentional insult or intimidation causing humiliation would constitute an offence under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act) only if it is committed in public view (KP Thakur And Another v. State of UP and anr.)..Notably, Section 3 (1)(X) of the SC/ST Act provides that an offence under the act would be committed if anyone, not being a member of an SC/ST community, “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 view of this provision, Justice Ram Krishna Gautam observed that any act taking place behind locked doors would not constitute an offence under the SC/ST Act, since such the act “may never be said to be in a public view.”.In the case at hand, one Vinod Kumar Tanay had filed a complaint accusing the two applicants of various offences, including an offence under Section 3(1)(X) of the SC/ST Act. The two applicants were upper caste officers who were involved in adjudicating departmental proceedings initiated against Tanay..Tanay alleged that the two officers had assaulted him and insulted him by taking the name of his caste in the chamber of the enquiry officer (one of the applicants) during adjudication proceedings. On pleas filed by the two officers to quash the FIR registered on this complaint, the High Court, however, found that,.“The door was locked from inside. It was a Chamber of the Enquiry Officer, where Presenting Officer and Enquiry Officer were present and it can never be said to be a public view. Even if, any occurrence took place at that place, it may never be said to be a public view and it has been verified by apex court, mentioned as above. Hence, the very ingredient of offence punishable under Section 3(1)(X) of the Act was missing."Allahabad High Court.Additionally, the Court added that in a statement before the Magistrate under Section 200 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the complainant did not mention anything about being insulted for his caste by the two officers..“This ingredient too was missing in the statement of complainant, recorded under Section 200 of Cr.P.C.”Allahabad High Court.It was also observed that the Supreme Court has already cautioned that bald allegations of harassment by junior employees against their administrative seniors should be strictly analysed. This is to guard against making it impossible for administrative superiors to extract work from administrative juniors (Vaijnath Kondiba Khandke v. State Of Maharashtra)..With these, among other observations, the High Court quashed the criminal summons issued against the applicants, insofar as the offences under the SC/ST Act were concerned. The High Court concluded that,.“… prima facie, he (complainant) was delinquent employee, for which charge was framed. Preliminary inquiry stage was passed. Thereafter, departmental enquiry was being conducted and when this enquiry was conducted this fuss was created.Who created this and what was the precipitating point was to be visualized and examined by Magistrate before summoning applicants, but casually impugned order of summoning for offence punishable under Section 3(1)(X) of the Act was passed. On above facts and circumstances, as apparently offence under Section 3(1) (X) of the Act was not made out, on the basis of evidence collected in inquiry by Magistrate concerned, hence this application merits to be allowed in part.”.[Read the order]