Supreme Court refuses to entertain plea alleging misuse of SC/ST Act

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a plea challenging the 2018 amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 which restored the bar on anticipatory bail and removed the requirement of a preliminary inquiry before registration of a first information report (FIR) under the Act.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana did not agree with the petitioner's contention that the Act was leading to reverse discrimination against people belonging to other castes.

The Court observed that sufficient safeguards already exist under the law including the power of the courts to examine whether a prima facie case under the Act is made out or not.

The petitioner also questioned the payment of compensation to the victims under the SC/ST Act.

The counsel representing the petitioner told the Court that ₹493 crore had been distributed as compensation to the victims and argued that the scheme was literally "inviting people to lodge FIRs".

However, the Court was not convinced by the submissions and refused to hear the plea.

The plea challenged the 2018 amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which introduced Section 18A.

The amendment followed the Supreme Court's 2018 ruling in Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v State of Maharashtra. That judgment had introduced safeguards relating to preliminary inquiry and arrest, and held that there was no absolute bar on anticipatory bail under the Act.

The parliament subsequently amended the law to undo the effect of those directions. The amendment was upheld by a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Prathvi Raj Chauhan v Union of India in 2020.

The petitioner argued that the amendment could not nullify the earlier judgment without curing the defects identified by the Court in its 2018 ruling.

The Bench, however, noted that the amendment had already been upheld and declined to reopen the issue.

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