In Public View, and the Limits of the Offence

Five words that decide more prosecutions under this Act than any other, and the test the courts have built on them.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 3(1)(r) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 punishes intentionally insulting or intimidating with intent to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view, and section 3(1)(s) punishes abusing such a member by caste name in any place within public view; and the phrase is not defined in the Act.

Why the phrase matters more than any other in the Act

Because the two commonest atrocities reported in India are the caste insult and the caste abuse, and both clauses stand or fall on those five words. A prosecution for assault turns on injuries; a prosecution for arson turns on burnt timber. A prosecution under clause (r) or (s) turns on where the words were spoken and who could hear.

The drafting was deliberate. Parliament did not write "in a public place". It wrote "in any place within public view", and the difference between those two expressions is the whole of this chapter.

Swaran Singh, the leading case

Swaran Singh v. State, (2008) 8 SCC 435, decided on 18 August 2008 by Katju J. and another.

The facts. The first informant alleged that he was insulted by two of the appellants, who called him a Chamar, while he stood near a car parked at the gate of the premises. It was argued that the offence was not made out because the incident was not in a public place.

The holding. There is a clear distinction between a public place and a place within public view, and the section uses the second. Four propositions follow, and they should be given as four.

One. The gate of a house is a place within public view.

Two. It would have been different had the offence been committed inside a building and not in public view.

Three. If it is committed outside the building, for example in a lawn which can be seen by someone from the road or lane outside the boundary wall, the lawn is a place within public view.

Four. Even if the remark is made inside a building, if members of the public are present, not merely relatives or friends, it is within public view.

The distinction stated. A place may be a private place and yet within public view. A public place ordinarily means one owned or leased by the Government, a municipality, a local body or a gaon sabha, and not by private persons.