The Supreme Court on Tuesday held that criminal proceedings initiated under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act cannot be quashed merely because cognisance has been taken by a judicial magistrate instead of a special judge designated under the law.
"Merely on the ground that cognisance of the offences under the Atrocities Act is not taken directly by the Special Court constituted under Section 14, the entire criminal proceedings cannot be said to have been vitiated and cannot be quashed and set aside," a bench of Justices M R Shah and Aniruddha Bose said.
Going through the legal provision, the bench said Section 14 is required to be considered minutely. The words used are “court so established or specified shall have power to directly take cognizance of the offences”. The word “only” is conspicuously missing here, the bench pointed out.
The top court set aside the Gujarat High Court's judgement of May 9, 2019 which quashed the criminal proceedings against a group of police officers for abusing a woman of SC/ST community and causing her injuries.
It said the view taken by the High Court that the Magistrate has taken cognisance for the offences under the Atrocities Act and then committed the case to the Special Court and therefore, entire criminal proceedings were vitiated, cannot be accepted and is unsustainable.
"If the entire criminal proceedings are quashed on this ground, it will be given a premium to an accused who is alleged to have committed the offence under the Atrocities Act. Assuming for the sake of argument that the procedure adopted is irregular, in that case, why should victim who belonged to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes community be made to suffer," the bench said, ordering initiation of proceedings against the accused police officers.
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(Published 26 October 2021, 16:49 IST)
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