Supreme Court dismisses PIL challenging key provisions of SC/ST Atrocities Act

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a challenge to the constitutional validity of some key provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, saying safeguards laid down in its earlier judgments were sufficient to prevent misuse of its stringent arrest provisions.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said a three-judge bench had already laid down safeguards in the Prathviraj Chauhan case in 2020 and declined to entertain the petition filed as a public interest litigation (PIL).

“Sufficient safeguards have been laid down by a decision of the three-judge bench in Prathviraj Chauhan case (2020). We are not interested in entertaining this petition which is purportedly in public interest,” the bench said. This case had challenged sections 18 and 18A of the Act which denied anticipatory bail and required no prior enquiry to be conducted by the police before registering FIR. This judgment laid down the safeguards that where the complaint under the Act does not make out a prima facie case, in such cases the bar under sections 18 and 18A shall not apply.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by 19 people led by Brijbhushan Saini, who claimed to be victims of allegedly false prosecutions under the Act.

Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, appearing for the petitioners, argued that the 1989 Act, amended in 2015 and again in 2018, contains stringent provisions allowing police to register a case on a complaint without conducting a preliminary inquiry. Section 18A also bars anticipatory bail for a person accused under the law.

“Section 18A of the Act is being widely misused,” Jain said, referring to its impact on Section 35 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023 which allows the police to analyse if a complaint discloses credible information. The provision says “a police officer may arrest a person against whom a reasonable complaint or credible information has been received, or where there is reasonable suspicion that the person has committed a cognisable offence punishable with imprisonment of up to seven years.” The petition said that such an enquiry by police is prohibited by section 18A.

The bench, also comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, said, “Instances of misuse can be separately looked into by the court. But that cannot be a ground to doubt the constitutional validity of the Act.”

The bench said the Prathviraj Chauhan judgment had already dealt with the issue. The judgment held that in exceptional cases, the constitutional courts can exercuse power under the Code of Criminal Procedure (now replaced by BNSS) to quash the cases so as to prevent misuse of provisions of the Act.

It also referred to the Supreme Court’s August 2024 judgment in the Shajan Skaria case, which held that the bar under Section 18 of the 1989 Act  (expressly bars the application of anticipatory bail) would apply only where there is prima facie material indicating the commission of an offence.

The bench further pointed out that the Supreme Court has consistently held that arrest is not mandatory for offences punishable with imprisonment of less than seven years. This principle, it said, has also been applied to special laws such as the 1989 Act.

“But why should anticipatory bail be denied,” Jain asked.

The bench pointed to stringent provisions under laws such as the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which restrict bail in certain cases even where the offence carries a sentence of less than seven years.

“These are issues which the Parliament has decided in its wisdom. We cannot sit in the chair of the Parliament,” the court said.

Jain also referred to a parliamentary question stating that ₹493 crore had been distributed as compensation to victims under the Act. The petition alleged that the provisions of the Act are “manifestly arbitrary, draconian, and disproportionate”, creating “a parallel caste-based criminal justice system” and leading to alleged misuse and erosion of the rule of law.

It sought guidelines to ensure that police follow a procedure before registering an FIR or arresting a person, arguing that the Act does not provide adequate safeguards against false accusations once a person is arrested.

The petitioners also referred to National Crime Records Bureau data, claiming that in a large number of cases registered under the Act, police were unable to produce sufficient evidence, while those accused faced mental agony and loss of prestige and dignity in society. The petition relied on NCRB data for the period from 2020-2024 when the total cases registered under the Act saw a steady rise from nearly 46,000 (2020) to over 48,000 (2024) with cases peaking in 2023 to over 53,000. Correspondingly, the cases which ended up in conviction were a little over 5,000 in 2024. It was much less in the preceding years ranging from over 2,600 in 2020 to 4,600 in 2023.