Giving caste based abuses inside car cannot be held to be in public view; no offence under SC/ST Act: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court recently quashed summoning order and non-bailable warrants issued against a man under Section 3(1)(da),(dha) of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act).

The bench of Justice Raj Beer Singh observed that the allegations against the accused were that among other acts, he and his associates forcibly dragged a man into a car and assaulted and abused him by using caste indicative words and thereafter threw him out of the car. 

Justice Singh held, "In view of facts of the matter and also considering the law laid down in case of Hitesh Verma vs. The State of Uttrakhand and another 2020 AIR (SC) 5584, it cannot be said that alleged incident of abusing inside the car took place within public view, thus, no offence under Section 3(1)(da), (dha) is made out".

Court was dealing with a criminal appeal filed by the accused, namely Syed Mohiuddin Ahmad, under Section 14-A (1) of SC/ST Act.

The appeal was filed for quashing of charge-sheet and cognizance/summoning order passed by Special Judge, SC/ST Act, Allahabad in Special Trial arising out of a case of year 2019 under Sections 323, 504, 506, 406 IPC and Section 3(1)Da, Dha of SC/ST (PA) Act registered at Jhusi Police Station in District Allahabad. 

The argument put forth by accused's counsel was that the FIR in the case had been lodged making false and baseless allegations. 

The counsel asserted that the dispute between the parties was civil in nature, which had been converted by the opposite party into criminal case by concocting a false story.

He further apprised the court that in the complaint made to the police and SSP regarding the incident, there were no allegations that the opposite party was abused by using caste indicative words rather the first information report of the case had been got lodged by the opposite party by moving an application under Section 156(3) CrPC.

However, the court noted that the Special Judge (SC/ST Act) had not issued any summons or bailable warrant before issuing the impugned non-bailable warrants.

Therefore, bearing in mind the statutory provisions and the principles of law laid down by the Supreme Court regarding the issue, high court observed that the court should first issue summon simplicitor or bailable warrant to accused and only thereafter, if he does not appear after service, as a last resort, nonbailable warrant of arrest should be issued to secure the presence of the accused person. 

Accordingly, while noting that in the present case, due procedure of law had not been followed while issuing non-bailable warrants against the accused, court quashed the same. 

Further, court upheld the summoning of the accused under Sections 323, 504, 506, 406 of IPC while observing that no offence against the accused under SC/ST was prima facie made out against him.