{"id":28372,"date":"2024-08-27T18:29:07","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T12:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=28372"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:35:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T06:05:13","slug":"supreme-court-of-india-on-sc-st-act-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/27-08-2024\/supreme-court-of-india-on-sc-st-act-1989","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court of India on SC\/ST Act, 1989\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/Vulnerable Section of Society<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Recently, the Supreme Court held in a judgement that <strong>not all insults and intimidatory comments<\/strong> aimed at a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe person would be an offence under the <strong>Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC\/ST Act).<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Background of SC \/ ST Act<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The <strong>Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955<\/strong> was initially passed in Parliament to eradicate inherent discriminatory attitudes against the SCs and STs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It was renamed as the<strong> Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) Act in 1976.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Later, owing to the <strong>ineffectiveness of the above acts,<\/strong> the <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/26-08-2022\/atrocities-against-scs-sts\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/26-08-2022\/atrocities-against-scs-sts\">Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989<\/a><\/em><\/strong> came into existence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>According to the SC\/ST Act, the <strong>protection is provided from social disabilities<\/strong> such as denial of access to certain places and to use a customary passage, personal atrocities like forceful drinking or eating of inedible food, sexual exploitation, injury, etc, and atrocities affecting properties, malicious prosecution, political disabilities, and economic exploitation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The SC\/ST Act is in place to deliver justice to the marginalised through proactive efforts, giving them a life of dignity, self-esteem, and a life without fear, violence, or suppression from the dominant castes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Provisions of Criminal Law<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Atrocities can be <strong>committed only by non-SCs and non-STs<\/strong> on members of the SC or ST communities.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Crimes among or between SCs and STs<\/strong> do not come under the purview of this Act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cancellation of arms licences in the areas identified where an atrocity may take or has taken place and grant arms licences to the SCs and STs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Amendment<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Act was <strong>amended in 2015<\/strong> to make it more effective and to provide greater justice and enhanced redressal to injustice suffered by the atrocity victims.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It includes new offences, expanded scope of presumptions, institutional strengthening, and establishment of<strong> Special Courts and Exclusive Special Courts<\/strong> to exclusively try offences under the SC\/ST Act to enable expeditious disposal of cases.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Recent Observation of Supreme Court<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Intent Matters:<\/strong> The court emphasised that the intention behind the insult or intimidation is crucial. Mere knowledge that the victim belongs to an SC\/ST community is insufficient to invoke the provisions of the Act.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Instead, the insult must be intentionally directed at the victim because of their caste identity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Caste-Based Humiliation:<\/strong> To trigger the Act, the \u2018humiliation\u2019 inflicted by the aggressor must be intricately associated with the victim\u2019s caste identity.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In other words,<strong> it\u2019s not every intentional insult<\/strong> that results in caste-based humiliation. The court clarified that this applies only in cases where the insult reinforces historically entrenched ideas, such as untouchability or notions of caste superiority.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The court recognised that <strong>insults or intimidation can occur without reference<\/strong> to caste. If the insult is not specifically tied to the victim\u2019s SC\/ST status, it <strong>does not fall under the purview of the Act.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Anticipatory Bail:<\/strong> It <strong>cannot be denied under Section 18 of the Act<\/strong> unless a prima facie case under the Act is established against the accused. It ensures that individuals are not unfairly deprived of their right to seek anticipatory bail.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/sc-st-act-applicable-intention-humiliate-supreme-court-9529733\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source: IE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ebecf0\"><strong>Further Reading:<\/strong> Read our detailed article on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/blog\/supreme-court\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/blog\/supreme-court\/\"><strong>Supreme Court of India: Composition, Appointment, Jurisdiction &amp; More<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, the Supreme Court held in a judgement that not all insults and intimidatory comments aimed at a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe person would be an offence under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC\/ST Act).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28372"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30766,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28372\/revisions\/30766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}