What constitutes an offence in the context of humiliating remarks made against a member belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989? While granting anticipatory bail to the editor of a Malayalam YouTube news channel, the Supreme Court has laid down the conditions for an insult to be considered an offence under the SC/ST Act.
What is not an offence under the SC/ST as per the court order
A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra held that “all insults and intimidations to a member of the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe will not amount to an offence under the Act, 1989 unless such insult or intimidation is on the ground that the victim belongs to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe.”
The court made it clear that Section 3(1)(r) of the Act where “with intent to humiliate” is spelt out as an offence is inextricably linked to the caste identity of the person who is subjected to intentional insult or intimidation.
“Not every intentional insult or intimidation of a member of a SC/ST community will result into a feeling of caste-based humiliation. It is only in those cases where the intentional insult or intimidation takes place either due to the prevailing practice of untouchability or to reinforce the historically entrenched ideas like the superiority of the ‘upper castes’ over the ‘lower castes/untouchables’, the notions of 'purity' and 'pollution', etc. that it could be said to be an insult or intimidation of the type envisaged by the Act, 1989,” the court said.
The court further said that mere knowledge of the fact that the victim is a member of the SC/ST community is not sufficient to attract the provisions of Section 3(1)(r) of the Act.
What does Section 3(1)(r) of the Act say
The Section, which defines offences of atrocities, states with regard to verbal insults that a person would be guilty of an offence when he or she “intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view”.
The case
A case was filed against Shajan Skaria, editor of the Malayalam Youtube news channel Marunadan Malayalee, under the SC/ST Act for his allegedly derogatory remarks made against CPM MLA P.V. Sreenijan.
The remarks were allegedly made in a news item telecast by Skaria on the Youtube channel about the alleged mismanagement of a sports hostel by Sreenijan in his capacity as chairman of the District Sports Council. Skaria had been denied anticipatory bail by the trial court and the Kerala High Court.
