Supreme Court in its last hearing refused to put a hold on its verdict of immediate arrest of accused under the Dalit Act.
New Delhi: After the centre’s request to review its own order, the Supreme Court on Thursday said it was “100 percent” for the protection of Dalits but no one should be “falsely accused”. The court’s move in March made it difficult to arrest people for crimes against Dalits, weakened the law and amounted to judicial activism, the government pointed out. The court’s order stopping the immediate arrest of people under the SC/ST Law led to massive protests by Dalit groups.
The government’s top law officer KK Venugopal told the Supreme Court that its ruling had shaken the confidence of Dalits “in the ability of the state to protect them” and affected their morale. “Our judgement did not incite anyone to commit a crime. Our judgment has been wrongly understood. The SC/ST community has full protection of this court,” the top court said, countering Mr Venugopal’s argument.
The Supreme Court bench said the investigating officer must be satisfied before arresting an accused. “Our concern was that without verifying of the allegation no case should be lodged against an innocent,” it said.
On March 20, while declaring the changes to the law for Dalits, the Supreme Court had said on “several occasions”, innocent citizens were labelled as accused and officials were deterred from performing their duties, which was never the intention of the legislature while enacting the Dalit law.
The centre, backing protests against the ruling, said it diluted tough action to be taken against those accused of attacks, rapes and other atrocities on Dalits.
Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government will not let the law to prevent atrocities on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to be weakened after the Supreme Court laid down new guidelines to prevent its misuse.
Blamed by the opposition of being anti-Dalit, PM Modi said the government acted fast to file a review petition. He said people often talk about the delay in moving the top court. “Only a few know that there were public holidays in between. When I tell this to people, they realise how fast we acted,” he said.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
