The Supreme Court has held that a person can be prosecuted under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act only if casteist slurs are hurled in “public view”, keeping such offences taking place in private spaces without a witness out of the law’s purview.
The bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and N.V. Anjaria passed the judgment while allowing an appeal filed by Gunjan alias Girija Kumari and some other appellants challenging Delhi High Court’s refusal to quash the framing of charges by the trial court in criminal cases registered against them at Kirti Nagar police station for alleged offences under the SC/ST Act and IPC Sections 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention).
The apex court noted that the alleged casteist abuse by the appellants was stated to have occurred within the residential premises of the complainant and the accused persons, who resided in the same place and were related through marriage.
The wives (appellants), who hailed from upper castes and were married into a Dalit family, had been accused of misbehaving with their brother-in-law and hurling casteist slurs at him on January 28, 2021.
The FIR was registered on January 30, 2021, with the Kirti Nagar police station, pursuant to a complaint lodged by the brother-in-law (respondent No. 2).
“All material facts go to suggest that the alleged incident took place in a private place and within four walls of the house of respondent No. 2-complainant (Dalit) and the appellants, who all are family members,” the bench said in its judgment.
“It could be said that the occurrence of the incident to become an offence under the SC/ST Act must have happened ‘in a place within public view’, is in a way, a principal requirement among the other ingredients. The other aspects namely ‘intentional insult or intimidation” and ‘an intent to humiliate’, gathers a kind of intensity when the insult, intimidation, humiliation or abusive utterances, as the case may be, takes place in ‘a place within public view’, in the presence of members of the public,” it added.
Referring to earlier apex court judgments, Justice Anjaria said that for an offence to be made out under Section 3(1)(r) of the SC/ST Act, it is essential that the intentional insult, intimidation or abuse by caste name takes place in a “place within public view” and is intended to humiliate the member over their caste.
“In order to make out the offence under Section 3(1)(r) and/or Section 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act, the occurrence of the incident and the act and conduct of hurling of caste-based abuses must take place at ‘a place within public view’. It must be a place within the public gaze. Even if it happens to be a private place, then in such eventuality, a public eye must have an access to be able to notice what happens there or what is taking place that will only make the ‘place within public view’,” Justice Anjaria said.
“It was noticeable that in the complaint/FIR, nowhere it was stated that the said incident wherein... appellants are stated to have abused and threatened the complainant, took place where there was a public gaze. The necessary ingredient of occurrence of the incident ‘in a place within public view’ was conspicuously absent,” he added.
The top court quashed the FIR and the charges framed against the appellant accused.