High court notice to state on atrocities act

Source:- indiatimes.com

AURANGABAD: The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court has issued notice to the state government asking it to provide information whether it took steps for proper implementation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

A petition was filed by a Latur resident who was acquitted of atrocities charges seeking changes to the implementation and framing of rules for proper implementation of the act, as well as compensation for those who are wrongly booked under the act.

Following the petition, the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment on Friday filed an affidavit stating that “police and the public order are the state subjects, and the state is primarily responsible for prevention, detection, registration, investigation and prosecution of crimes against members of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes”.

The high court bench comprising justices T V Nalawade and Sangitrao S Patil on Friday issued notice to the state government and also allowed the petitioner, Datta Shriram Kadam, and two others to file a rejoinder to the Union government’s affidavit.

The court has scheduled the next date of hearing on the writ petition for March 24, said Kuldeep S Patil, the lawyer who represented the petitioners.

In their petition, Kadam, a resident of Mogha in Ahmedpur taluka of Latur district, and two lawyers Ramkrishna Kadam (25) of Dahegaon Ahmedpur and Suresh Karpe (27) of Ambejogai, Beed, have challenging the legality, proprietary, correctness and constitutional validity of the provisions in the Atrocities Act, arguing that they are violative of Articles 14, 15 and 17 of the Constitution.

The petition said Kadam was booked under Atrocities Act by the Ahmedpur police in 2013 “following a complaint from a person belonging to a scheduled caste.” Petition said the complainant “in collusion and in connivance with other persons from his community, only with a view to harass the petitioner no.1 (Datta Kadam) and book him in a false accusation due to village politics, scripted a story of a false incident of atrocity, which actually didn’t happen.”

Also, the police concerned did not conduct preliminary investigation on the complaint prior to registration of offence. “The police also did not take into consideration that witnesses to the alleged incident are interested witnesses. The offence was registered against Kadam only because of the pressure exerted by the people belonging to scheduled caste.”

The petition said the sessions court, Ahmedpur, acquitted Kadam on July 29, 2015. The state government challenged his acquittal in the high court, which dismissed the state’s petition on April 21, 2016 and confirmed the sessions court verdict. The state didn’t challenge the high court verdict, the petition said.

The petitioners said the “harassment faced by the petitioner number 1 due to false, frivolous and concocted complaint under the provisions of the act, is narrated above only for illustration to consider the grievance of misuse of the provisions of the act by some of the disgruntled elements in society. Thus, we seek appropriate changes in the implementation of the Atrocities Act and introduction of a provision for compensation to the victims of false atrocities cases,” said the lawyer.