Scope of SC/ST Act not limited to a person’s state of origin, entitled to protection throughout country: Bombay HC

The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act's reach cannot be restricted to the state in which a person is officially recognised as belonging to the group, the Bombay High Court  observed . To hold differently would be to undermine the intent of the legislation.

A full bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere, Bharati Dangre and N J Jamadar in their judgment said the Act was enacted to prevent atrocities against the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes and was intended to remove humiliation and harassment meted out to members of a class and to ensure them fundamental, socio-economic and political rights.

The person is also entitled protection under the Act, in any other part of the country, where the offence is committed, though he is not recognised as Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe there, the court said. The full bench also held that all appeals filed under the Act irrespective of the punishment shall lie within the jurisdiction of the single bench of the high court. The court in its order said caste automatically sticks to a person since he or she is born to two persons belonging to that caste or group.

A person has no choice. It is not possible for the person to get rid of the baggage of his or her caste though he or she may come out of the occupational grouping or from the social status of that particular caste and become socially and economically forward surpassing his peers in the caste, the bench said.

Atrocities Act came to be enacted, when it was realised that whenever members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes assert rights made available to them under the Constitution and demand statutory protection, they are intimidated, cowed down and disillusioned and even terrorised and made to suffer ignominy, the court said.