The Atrocities Act 1989

In one line

The statute that replaced the 1955 Act as the operative law on caste, and the one whose section 18A Parliament inserted to undo what the Supreme Court had read into it five months earlier.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 was enacted to prevent the commission of offences of atrocities against members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, to provide for Special Courts for the trial of such offences and for the relief and rehabilitation of the victims. It creates a distinct class of offences in section 3, provides Special Courts under section 14 and an appeal under section 14A, gives victims and witnesses rights under Chapter IVA, excludes anticipatory bail by section 18 and, by section 18A inserted in 2018, provides that no preliminary enquiry is required to register a first information report, that no approval is required for an arrest, and that section 438 of the Code shall not apply notwithstanding any judgment or order of any court.

Why a second statute was needed

Because the Act of 1955 reached DISABILITIES and not VIOLENCE. Its offences are about being refused entry, service or admission. A person assaulted, paraded, dispossessed or driven out was the victim of ordinary crimes prosecuted under the general criminal law, where the caste element disappeared.

Because the penalties were petty. Summarily triable offences with small punishments do not describe a constitutional wrong.

And because prosecutions failed. Section 15A of the 1955 Act, inserted in 1976, is Parliament's own record of that, and the Act of 1989 is what it did next.

The scheme

Section 1. Short title, extent and commencement. It extends to the whole of India and came into force on the date the Central Government appointed by notification. Note the reach: unlike the Presidential lists, which are made State by State under articles 341 and 342, the Act itself applies everywhere, and it is the LIST that is territorial, not the offence.

Section 2. Definitions, including "atrocity", which means an offence punishable under section 3, and "Special Court" and "victim".

Section 3, the offences. A long list of acts done by a person not a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe against a member of one, punishable with imprisonment of not less than six months extending to five years and with fine, together with a class of graver offences punishable more severely. The categories cover forcing to eat or drink an inimical substance; dumping excreta or carcasses in premises or a neighbourhood; forcibly removing clothes, parading naked or with painted face or body; wrongful occupation or cultivation of land, or transfer of land, allotted or notified to be allotted; dispossession from land or premises or interference with rights over land; compelling to do begar or other forms of forced or bonded labour; compelling or intimidating not to vote or to vote for a particular candidate; instituting false, malicious or vexatious proceedings; giving false or frivolous information to a public servant; intentional insult or intimidation with intent to humiliate in any place within public view; and offences relating to sexual exploitation, to water sources, to the denial of customary rights of passage and to causing a person to leave their house or village.