Supreme Court refuses to stay SC/ST ruling

New Delhi: In a setback to the Centre, the Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to put on hold its March 20 verdict related to the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, asserting that its verdict aims to protect innocents and not dilute the law for checking crimes against dalits.

A bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit said, “We have said that innocents should not be penalised. The innocents cannot be terrorised by the provisions of the SC/ST Act. 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.” They had delivered the March 20 judgment.

The bench, which agreed to hear the Centre’s review petition in open court, said that its verdict can only be reviewed if there is a “patent error” in law. The apex court had said on March 20 that a preliminary inquiry should precede the arrest of an accused under the Act and that accused are entitled to anticipatory bail.

Declining attorney-general K.K. Venugopal’s plea to suspend the direction that a preliminary inquiry should be conducted by a police officer not below the rank of deputy superintendent of police before an arrest can be made under the Act, the court asked, “Why does the government want people to be arrested without verification?”    

“Liberty can’t be taken away without a preliminary inquiry. There shouldn’t be any terror in society for innocent persons,” the court said.

Stating that there should be no politics in the case, Justice Goel said, “We have clearly said that the outer limit for conducting the preliminary probe is seven days, it can be completed in one hour or even in 15 minutes, if there are verifiable evidence.”  

Disagreeing with suggestions that the March 20 decision was anti-dalit, Justice Lalit said, “We are not saying discharge the accused or not punish them. We are not diluting the Act in any way. We are only safeguarding innocent persons from arrest. As there is no other pre-arrest protection mechanism, we have said no arrest till a preliminary inquiry is conducted.”

The bench directed the parties to file written submissions and directed the matter to be listed in 10 days.    

Earlier, when the AG said that there is a tremendous sense of deprivation, discontent and agitation among dalits following the verdict, Justice Goel said, “We are not concerned about what is happening outside this court. Those agitating on streets may not have even read our judgment. Vested interests are also involved some time. We are only concerned about innocent people being put behind bars. We are not against the Act at all. But innocents can’t be punished on unilateral version.”

“How can a democracy function without Article 21 (right to life and liberty) safeguard to innocents? There is no conflict of law in our judgment,” said Justice Goel.

Several states were rocked by violence and clashes on Monday following a “Bharat Bandh” call given by dalit organisations protesting against the apex court’s March 20. Ten people died in the violence.

Dalit groups claim that the Supreme Court’s March 20 order, imposing preliminary inquiry before arrest, weakens the stringent anti-atrocities law. They also say the Centre has failed to highlight two key facts in court — the high rate of atrocities on the community and the abysmally low rate of conviction.

In 2016, which saw a 5.5 per cent increase in crimes against SCs, and 4.7 per cent rise in crimes against STs, in all 47,338 cases were registered under the SC/SC Act. Of these, 5,347 cases were false, while 869 cases were said to be mistake of fact. An additional 2,150 cases were found true but lacking proof.

The average conviction rate under the Act is about 25 per cent.