The Rajasthan High Court recently dismissed charges under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act) in a case involving alleged use of derogatory terms such as ‘Bhangi,’ ‘Neech,’ ‘Bhikhari,’ and ‘Mangani’ by four men against public officials, including one belonging to an SC/ST community.
Justice Birendra Kumar rightly held that these words do not constitute caste abuse and hence did not attract the provision of punishment under the SC/ST Act. It is an incident which occurred in 2011 in the district of Jaisalmer. Officials went there to inspect alleged encroachment on public land. According to the charges, the accused was obstructive and uttered offending words.
The court could find no such evidence that the terms were uttered with intent to humiliate the officials on the basis of their caste. It pointed out that the accused were protesting the official action and do not know the caste of the public servants involved in the official action.
The words used were not caste names, nor can there be any allegation that the petitioners knew about the caste of the public servants,” the court said. “It is quite palpable that the intent was to humiliate the officers on account of their being members of the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe.”.
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The petitioners had sought to quash the case as there was not a single piece of evidence showing that this was an intentional insult or intimidation aimed at degrading a member of the SC/ST in public, as required under Section 3(1)(X) of the SC/ST Act. There were independent witnesses lacking to corroborate the claims.
The High Court found merits in their submissions and recorded the fact that the preliminary police investigation had indeed reported that the allegations were not substantiated. Charges were framed by a trial court after a protest petition, but the High Court justified quashing the SC/ST Act charges because nothing on record spoke of independent witnesses that could classify the incident with such gravity as having occurred in public gaze.
Even so, the court upheld charges under Sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant) and 332 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as valid grounds for proceeding with trial on those counts.
The petitioners obstructed the public servants in the discharge of their official duties, which prima facie constitutes a criminal act under the IPC, the court said in its order dated November 12.
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