A-G tells SC: SC/ST ruling led to damage and disharmony
The confusion created by the judgment, it was submitted, deserves to be corrected.
New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that its ruling on the SC/ST Act that no arrests can be made under it without a prior probe had led to “great damage” to the country and that it was causing “anger and a sense of disharmony” among the people, and vehemently sought a review and recall of its order.
On April 3, while the court refused to stay the directions on arrest, it asked attorney-general K.K. Venugopal to spell out the reasons through “written submissions” as to why the government was opposing the verdict. The A-G accordingly filed a detailed response.
A bench of Justices A.K. Goel and Uday Lalit had then observed: “There is no dilution of any provision of the SC/ST Act relating to compensation, trial, pu-nishment or otherwise. The order only safeguards abuse of power of arrest or of false implication of an innocent without in any manner affecting the rights of members of SC/ST.”
Referring to the directions, the Centre said the case dealing with an issue of very sensitive nature has caused a lot of commotion in the country and was also creating anger, unease and a sense of disharmony. It faulted the court for resorting to judicial legislation, when no such power existed.
It said this judgment had diluted the provisions of the SC/ST Atrocities Act, read with the Crminal Procedure Code, resulting in great damage to the country. It said when it was Parliament’s mandate to grant protection to dalits against atrocities, there was no reason for the court to dilute this and act contrary to the provisions.
The government noted that the police officer on registration of an FIR was bound to effect the arrest, but he will now be compelled not to arrest the accused and any violation will result in contempt.
The confusion created by the judgment, it was submitted, deserves to be corrected. On grant of anticipatory bail, the Centre noted that the court had already upheld the validity of Section 18 of SC/ST Act, which prohibits anticipatory bail. ln view of this, anticipatory bail cannot be granted in any case where the complainant makes an allegation of an offence under the Atrocities Act, the Centre said, seeking review and recall of the judgment so that no basis for misunderstanding the judgment or its impact on implementation of the Atrocities Act would continue.