The SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act: the Offences

In one line

The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 creates a graded set of offences of atrocity in section 3, punishes a public servant's wilful neglect of duty in section 4, and provides for forfeiture of property, presumptions and the removal of a likely offender.

Why the Act exists

Article 17 abolishes untouchability and makes the enforcement of any disability arising out of it an offence punishable in accordance with law.

Article 35 reserves to Parliament the power to prescribe punishment for acts declared offences under Part III.

Article 46 requires the State to promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections, in particular the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and to protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.

The Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955 had been found inadequate, and the 1989 Act was enacted to create specific offences, a special court and a procedure.

So this Act is the constitutional mandate in article 17 carried into the criminal law, which is why it belongs in a human rights paper rather than only in a criminal law one.

Section 3: the offences

The structure is worth stating before the content. Section 3(1) creates a long list of offences punishable with imprisonment of not less than six months but which may extend to five years with fine; section 3(2) creates graver offences with heavier punishment, including offences of giving false evidence leading to a conviction for a capital offence and of committing an offence under the Penal Code punishable with imprisonment for ten years or more against a person on the ground of their membership.

Every offence in section 3(1) requires that the offender is not a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe, which is the classification the Act rests on. Section 1 gives the short title, the extent to the whole of India and the commencement, and section 2 the definitions, including atrocity, which means an offence punishable under section 3, and victim and dependent, added in 2015.

The categories of conduct, and giving them by category is better than listing every clause:

Humiliation of the person. Forcing a person to eat or drink an inedible or obnoxious substance; garlanding with footwear; parading naked or semi-naked; forcibly removing clothes, forcible tonsuring of the head, removing moustaches, painting the face or body or any similar act derogatory to human dignity.

Defilement of premises and property. Dumping excreta, sewage, carcasses or other obnoxious substance in or at the entrance of premises occupied by a member, or in the neighbourhood with intent to cause injury, insult or annoyance.