The Scheduled Castes and Tribes
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, or the SC/ST Act protects the dalits against
discrimination and atrocities.
On March 20, 2018 the Supreme Court expressed
concern over misuse of the Act and ruled against automatic arrest of the ‘accused’
under the law.
It also introduced the provision of
anticipatory bail. The Supreme Court ruled that public servants cannot be
prosecuted without the approval of the appointing authority and citizens too
should be arrested only after an inquiry under the law.
This led to widespread protests in the
form of Bharat Bandh across five states claiming 11 lives including 4 patients
who died in the ambulance waiting for the protesters to free the roads for them
to reach the hospital.
The central government filed the review
petition in the matter. However, turning down the government's appeal to freeze
the earlier verdict, the top court said, our aim is to protect innocents, we
have not diluted the law in any manner.
While the apex court also agreed to hear
the review petition after 10 days there were several important points that were
made in the judgment.
Here are a few points that the apex
court expressed its concern while reviewing the petition by the central
government.
The judgment is not in conflict with the
SC/ST Act. It does not dilute the law in any way. We only flagged one issue -
can the liberty of an innocent be taken away without application of mind? We
only said protect an innocent from being falsely implicated under the Act,
which has stringent provisions.
"Innocents cannot be terrorised by
the provisions of the SC/ST Act and their fundamental rights need to be
protected. We don't want to deprive anyone from right to life and we make
ourselves very clear that we are not against the Act or the complainants,” a
bench of justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and UU Lalit said during the hearing of the
review petition.
People agitating may not have read the
judgment. They may have been misled. The top court’s inference that those who
have hit the streets unleashing violence and destroying private and public
property might not have understood the import of the judgment could be valid as
these protests appear to have been engineered largely by vested interests.
THE
SC JUDGMENT AND ITS INFERENCE
Now let’s go and read the judgment in
between the lines and have an overview of the fight for the fundamental rights
in India.
The first and foremost point that the
Supreme Court made is that the judgment is not affront to the Dalit rights and is
not in conflict with the SC/ST Act. But the judgment only protects the right of
the innocent citizens. The decision only flagged one issue - can the liberty of
an innocent be taken away without application of mind? SC only said to protect
an innocent from being falsely implicated under the Act, which has stringent
provisions. The fact that the SC/ST act is being misused against the citizens
of this country is an understatement but it’s obvious from the verdict.
No less than the apex court of this
country was compelled to state that the “innocents cannot be terrorised by the
provisions of the SC/ST Act and their fundamental rights need to be protected.”
Use of the word “terrorised” clearly
shows that the prescribed fundamental rights of the citizens of this country
are being brazenly undermined under the shadow of this draconian law according
to which only a statement by a person belonging to the dalit community snatches
all the fundamental rights of the “accused” and the person is arrested without
any investigations into the matter. Adding to that, the arrest is non-bailable.
The third inference that the apex court
made in its judgment is that the people agitating on the streets may not have
understood the verdict. Well, a look at the agitators on the streets would
itself let anyone know that they can barely be able to read the statement, let
apart their understanding of the judgment.
The fourth and probably the most
important statement made by the apex court is that the protests during Bharat
Bandh appear to have been engineered largely by vested interests.
What can be these vested interests?
These are purely political interests that the political parties and their
leaders targeted through the mass damage of public property and the loss of 11
precious lives.
Primarily, the Bandh was called upon by
Dalit groups headed by their leader Prakash Ambedkar who took responsibility of
the Bandh on all TV channels brazenly and warned to hold the country on ransom
if their demands are not met.
What were their demands, to abandon and
abolish the fundamental rights of the citizens of this country on complaint of
a dalit person.
It is important to know that Prakash
Ambedkar is the grandson of Baba Sahab Ambedkar and apart from this fact his
contribution towards the development of his society is zero.
It is also shocking that he is standing
against the Constitution of this country written by his grand father Dr
Ambedkar who prescribed fundamental rights for its citizens with a special
mention that under no circumstances these rights can be abolished.
The other culprits of this menace were
leaders of the opposition parties who have time and again proved themselves
disaster for this country. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, Left parties, Lalu
Yadav and the RJD, Mamata Banerji and the TMC and Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP are
only a few to name here who are poised to oppose PM Modi at any cost and at any
level.
Moreover, there were 2 poll bound states
who took the maximum brunt of this Bharat Bandh, namely Madhya Pradesh and
Rajasthan. Both BJP-ruled states incurred maximum deaths and large scale of
losses to public property.
So, it is quite obvious that the motive
behind this Bharat Bandh was uprooting the BJP govts in the two states and
bringing an anti-Dalit image of PM Modi on the fore in the run-up for 2019
elections.
Also, leaders like Prakash Ambedkar,
Rahul Gandhi and others can find an appropriate ground for their political
goals, who have so far proved to be failures in the political arena of the
Indian democratic political system.
A
STEP FORWARD REQUIRED IN INDIA
It is commendable that the Supreme Court
has refused to stay its order over the draconian SC/ST act in order to prevent
the fundamental rights of citizens in India, but what more is required from the
apex court is to fix the responsibility of this large scale Bandh called by
political parties and compensation for the lives lost during this Bharat Bandh.
The Supreme Court in its 1997 order
prohibited any political party and group to call a Bandh and damage the public
property. It also stated that if political parties resort to such tactics the
judiciary would fix responsibility and ask them to compensate for the damges
done to the public property.
In 2005, the Bombay HC ordered the Shiv
Sena-BJP coalition to pay Rs 40 lakhs for their bandh called against the 2003
bomb blast. Citing example of the case, the apex court must go on to announce
the compensation for the damage of the public property caused during the Bharat
Bandh from the groups which primarily called the Bandh and the political
parties who openly expressed their support to it.
This is not all. The apex court must
issue a warning to the political leaders for not holding the country on ransom
for the next time and make sure that their respective parties are not indulged
in such acts.
Failing to which, the consequences may include cancellation of
their candidature in the upcoming elections and a repeat of the act leading to
de-recognition of their party.
THE
SC/ST ACT
The Scheduled Castes and Tribes
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, or the SC/ST Act protects the dalits against
discrimination and atrocities.
Here's All You Need To Know About SC/ST
Act:
1. The Scheduled Castes and Tribes
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act is popularly known as POA, the SC/ST Act, the
Prevention of Atrocities Act, or simply the Atrocities Act. The SC/ST Act was
enacted on September 9, 1989. The rules for the Act were notified on March 31,
1995.
2. The SC/ST Act lists 22 offences
relating to various patterns or behaviours inflicting criminal offences and
breaking the self-respect and esteem of the scheduled castes and tribes
community. This includes denial of economic, democratic and social rights,
discrimination, exploitation and abuse of the legal process.
3. According to the SC/ST Act, the
protection is provided from social disabilities such as denial of access to
certain places and to use customary passage, personal atrocities like forceful
drinking or eating of inedible food sexual exploitation, injury etc, atrocities
affecting properties, malicious prosecution, political disabilities and
economic exploitation.
4. For speedy trial, Section 14 of the
SC/ST Act provides for a Court of Session to be a Special Court to try offences
under this Act in each district.
5. The prime objective of the SC/ST Act
is to deliver justice to marginalised through proactive efforts, giving them a
life of dignity, self-esteem and a life without fear, violence or suppression
from the dominant castes.
Moreover, the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and
the Scheduled Tribes (STs) Prevention of Atrocities (PoA) Act, 1989 was amended
recently to include new offences and to ensure speedy justice to victims. The
amended law had come into effect from January 26, 2016.
In a democratic system no complainant
can be prosecutor and judge of its own case, neither his special rights can be
considered valid that abolishes the fundamental rights of its fellow citizens
in the same country.
Now, the time has come that the Indian
democracy behaves maturely and people do not fall prey to their political
masters irrespective of the caste and the community they belong to. Let’s
pledge to make India a great country that runs on the spirit of merits and not
reservations.
Comments
Post a Comment