06/11/2020
Insulting remarks made to a person belonging to Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes within four walls of the house with no witnesses does not amount to offence, the Supreme Court said on Thursday as it quashed the charges under the SC/ST Act against a man who had allegedly abused a woman within her building.
The top court said that “all insults or intimidations to a person will not be an offence under the SC/ST Act unless such insult or intimidation is on account of victim belonging to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe”.
It added that an offence under the SC/ST Act would be made out when a member of the vulnerable section of the Society is subjected to “indignities, humiliations and harassment” in any place within public view.
A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and Ajay Rastogi said, “In view of the facts, we find that the charges against the appellant under Section 3(1)(r) of the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 are not made out. Consequently, the charge-sheet to that extent is quashed. The appeal is disposed of in the above terms”.
“Therefore, the basic ingredient that the words were uttered “in any place within public view” is not made out,” the bench said, adding that certain witnesses are named in the charge sheet but it could not be said that those were the persons present within the four walls of the building.
“The offence is alleged to have taken place within the four walls of the building. Therefore, in view of the judgment of this Court in Swaran Singh (2008), it cannot be said to be a place within public view as none was said to be present within the four walls of the building as per the FIR and/or charge-sheet,” it said.