SC to pronounce judgement on SC/ST Atrocities Act on Feb 10

The Supreme Court will on Monday pronounce its judgement on whether an accused of offences under the stringent Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, could be granted anticipatory bail on a strong suspicion of false charges.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, Vineet Saran and S Ravindra Bhat would deliver the judgement on February 10 on a couple of PILs that challenged validity of the Amendment Act 2018, particularly Section 18A(2).

The new provision stated Section 438 (pre-arrest bail) of the CrPC would not apply to a case under the Atrocities Act, notwithstanding any judgment or order or direction of any court.

Parliament had on August 9, 2018 passed the Amendment Act to overturn the apex court judgement of March 20, 2018.

The amendment was brought in to nullify the effect of the judgement which had put in certain safeguards like preliminary inquiry before registering FIR and prior approval of the authorities before arrest of the accused in cases registered under the Atrocities Act in view of "rampant misuse" of the law.

Since the judgement caused huge political furore, the Union government, apart from bringing in amendment, filed a review petition and pressed for restoring the stringent provisions.

On October 1, 2019, the top court had recalled the March 20, 2018 judgement, saying the directions issued by a two-judge bench amounted to “encroaching on a field which is reserved for the legislature” and “would cause several legal complications”, besides delay in timely completion of the investigations".

However, two PILs, filed by Prathvi Raj Chauhan and Priya Sharma, had remained pending.

Reserving its judgement on October 3, 2019, the bench had said, "We are not diluting provisions. We will not pass any long order. We have already said more (in review judgement)."

At the same time, the bench said preliminary enquiry can be undertaken in certain cases as those stood in terms of Lalita Kumari judgement (2013).

"We cannot curtail rights guaranteed under Article 21 (Life and Liberty) of the Constitution. Those are related to questions of individual liberty," the bench also said.