Constitutional Validity Of The SC/ST (Prevention Of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 Upheld: SC
- shrey singh
- Feb 20, 2020
- 3 min read
Constitutional Validity Of The SC/ST (Prevention Of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 Upheld: Supreme Court
Prathvi Raj Chauhan v. Union of India
WRIT PETITION [C] NO. 1015 OF 2018 decided on 10.02.2020
Bench
Arun Mishra, Vineet Saran and S. Ravindra Bhat, JJ
Facts
The petition was filed challenging the provisions inserted by way of carving out section 18A of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The said provision was inserted by Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 in order to nullify the effect of the Supreme court ruling in Dr Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra, 2018 SCC OnLine SC 243 which laid down the following guidelines:
“(ii) there is no absolute bar against grant of anticipatory bail in cases under the Atrocities Act if no prima facie case is made out or where on judicial scrutiny the complaint is found to be prima facie mala fide.
(iii) arrest of a public servant can only be after approval of the appointing authority and of a non-public servant after approval by the S.S.P. which may be granted in appropriate cases if considered necessary for reasons recorded. Such reasons must be scrutinized by the Magistrate for permitting further detention.
(iv) to avoid false implication of an innocent, a preliminary enquiry may be conducted by the DSP concerned to find out whether the allegations make out a case under the Atrocities Act and that the allegations are not frivolous or motivated.
(v) any violation of the direction of the Court will be actionable by way of disciplinary action as well as contempt.”
Question of Law
Constitutional validity of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018?
Held
The Court said that the Amendment Act, 2018 is constitutionally valid. Furthermore, it was held that a court can grant anticipatory bail only in cases where a prima facie case is not made out.
Opinion Per Justice Mishra and Justice Saran
Section 18 and 18A (i) create a bar that preliminary enquiry shall not be required for registration of a First Information Report against any person or the investigating officer shall not require approval for the arrest if the complaint does not make out a prima facie case. For the applicability of the provisions of the SC/ST Act 1989, the bar created by section 18 and 18A (i) shall not apply if the complaint does not make out a prima facie case.
Justice Bhat, in his separate opinion, agreed with the views expressed by Justice Arun Mishra but added a caveat to it
He said that while considering any application seeking pre-arrest bail, the High Court has to balance the two interests: i.e. that the power is not so used as to convert the jurisdiction into that under Section 438(anticipatory bail) of the Criminal Procedure Code, but that it is used sparingly and such orders made in very exceptional cases where no prima facie offence is made out as shown in the FIR, and further also that if such orders are not made in those classes of cases, the result would inevitably be a miscarriage of justice or abuse of process of law.
Kommentare