Centre urges Apex Court to recall order on SC/ST Act

New Delhi: The Central government on Monday moved the Supreme Court to seek recall of its judgment that there would be no automatic arrest of an accused following a complaint under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
As the Supreme Court on March 20 held that police will hold an inquiry to ascertain the veracity of the complaint filed under the Act before acting on it, the government pleaded that this would result in “impermissible delay in registration of cases”, adversely affecting the working of the law.
Seeking the judgment’s recall, the government said it “entails wide ramifications and implications resulting in dilution of the stringent provisions” of the 1989 law.
The petition referred to the “increase” in the “disturbing trend” of “certain atrocities” where Scheduled Castes were made to eat “inedible substances like human excreta”, attacks on them and mass killings and rape of women belonging to SC and ST.
Despite the deterrent provision of the law, the high incidence of offences against SC/ST show that it “was not being adequately felt by the accused”, it said, adding it was against this backdrop, that it became necessary to make its provisions more effective as it referred to 2016 amendment to the prevention of atrocities law.
Describing Section 18 which denies the grant of anticipatory bail to the accused as “backbone” of the Act, the government’s petition said: “Any dilution thereof would shake the very objective of mechanism to prevent offences of atrocities.”
The order would not normally merit denial of anticipatory bail but “by its uniform application would cause miscarriage of justice even in deserving cases”, it said. (IANS)