The PoA Act judgement and its repercussions: A ground report from Kurnool

A number of people staged a padayatra from the village of Pedapadu in Rayalaseema to the city of Kurnool on the morning of May 19. They were protesting against a Supreme Court judgment which had laid down that the police were duty-bound to investigate complaints made under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (PoA Act), before arresting the accused.

Braving the scorching heat that radiated off the rocky outcrops dotting their path, they marched fifteen kilometers, protesting against the judgment delivered on March 20 this year by a Bench of Justices AK Goel and UU Lalit.

The march was led by the President of the Andhra Pradesh SC/ST Lawyers forum, Y Jayaraju. A veteran of thirty-five years at the Bar, Jayaraju has been spearheading agitations against the judgment and campaigning for the Andhra Pradesh High Court to be established in Kurnool, which served as the first capital of the state.

The forum’s demands are:

• An expeditious hearing of the review petition challenging the Supreme Court order dated March 20, 2018
• If this does not happen, a Presidential Ordinance repealing the operation of the judgment
• A Constitutional amendment to Article 141 of the Constitution, whereby court orders in contravention of Article 17 would be void.
• Reservation for SC/ST candidates in the higher judiciary, on par with the reservation, accorded to these communities in Parliament.
• Constitutional protection for the PoA Act by including it under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

Bar & Bench spoke to Jayaraju and other lawyers to find out more about their demands and the justification for the same.

The Numbers Game

“The Government of India is wholly responsible for this situation. They twisted statistics to show that the acquittal rate in cases registered under the PoA Act is on the rise. This doesn’t prove that the Act is being misused. It only proves that more cases are seeing the light of day. Conviction rates have always been abysmal,” said Jayaraju.

A former Special Public Prosecutor who tried to secure convictions in scores of cases under the PoA Act during a four-year stint between 1995 and 1999, Jayaraju is the first to admit that his strike rate wasn’t good.

Y Jayaraju at his Kurnool office

This, according to him, is because of a number of reasons. Firstly, the police are reluctant to register cases either because the pressure to desist is brought upon them by their political masters, or the upper caste accused tries to influence them.

Even when cases are registered, concerted pressure to withdraw the complaint is brought upon the complainant. In cases where a monetary settlement cannot be reached, complainants and their families are threatened.

In the event this hurdle is overcome, the investigation is often shoddy and riddled with lacunae in terms of gathering of evidence. This weakens the prosecution from the outset.

He added that the appointment of Public Prosecutors was a process wherein the guidelines stipulated were routinely flouted. Very often, Additional Public Prosecutors (APP) who were political appointees, to begin with, were promoted as a matter of right.

“Public prosecutors can also be persuaded to act against the interests of their clients, which is why in PoA cases, the complainant must be given the opportunity to be represented by a prosecutor of their choice,” said Jayaraju.

Knocking out the teeth of a cripple

B Chandrudu, a lawyer practicing at the Kurnool District Court, is also part of the campaign seeking a reversal of the Supreme Court judgment. He said that there were several things going against the mandate of the PoA Act being successfully brought to fruition.

“To say that arrest is not mandatory, permission has to be taken from the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) to effect an arrest, or that in cases involving officials of the state prior sanction has be granted by a legitimate authority, is akin to knocking the teeth of a cripple out”, he said.

He agrees that the Act, like any other legislation, had the potential to be misused. He added that in most cases where the PoA Act had been misused, the complainant was usually used as a tool between two warring upper caste factions to stymie each other, and that cases in which people belonging to the SC and ST communities used it to settle scores, were of a minuscule proportion.

Chandrudu also added that an increasing number of atrocities were coming to light in Northern states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, and Rajasthan, and to dilute the Act at such a juncture would lead to carnage. He added that though the caste system continued to be deeply entrenched throughout the country, atrocities in states where literacy was low, continued to be on the upswing.

“Education has reached more people from the backward classes in states such as Andhra and Karnataka. This has resulted in more people from SC and ST communities achieving a higher education and becoming aware of their rights, this has trickled down to the community level and large-scale atrocities like those committed in Karamchedu are thankfully on the decline”, he added.

Jayaraju added that the violent protests that rocked the Northern states were spontaneous and reflected the helplessness of a community that was already under siege. He was also quick to qualify Chandrudu’s comments saying that though violent atrocities may be on the wane in some states, “atrocities” as defined under the Act continue unabated.

“There is not a single junior or intern working in my chamber who is not an SC. A lot of people from different communities approach me for internships or to work under me as juniors, but the moment they find out that I am from the SC community, they vanish,” said Jayaraju.

Constitutional Protection

Jayaraju further said that Constitutional protection granted to SCs and STs should not be lifted until there was a total annihilation of the caste system in India and that given the way things stand, we are still several years away from that.

He added that the PoA Act flowed directly from Article 17 of the Constitution and that the government must act immediately to restore its sanctity, either by way of an Ordinance reversing the Supreme Court judgment or by amending Article 141 to ensure that any order in contravention of Article 17 is declared void.

M Subbiah a lawyer from the Kurnool Bar added that bringing the PoA Act under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution would prevent unnecessary debate and interventions that could water it down.

Representation in the Higher Judiciary

On the point of reservation for judges, Jayaraju said that even one SC/ST Judge on the Bench that passed the March 20 verdict would have made a big difference in terms of perspective and empathy.

“You cannot relate to social problems faced on the ground unless you have faced them in real life or observed them at close quarters,” he added.

Chandrudu said that there was discrimination against the few judges from the SC and ST community that held constitutional office.

“Look at what happened with Justice Karnan. He took a stance opposing corruption in the judiciary, and wrote to the relevant authorities and was sent to jail. When four senior judges of the Supreme Court went to the media, expressing dissatisfaction at the way things were functioning at the apex court, everyone hailed them as saviours of democracy”, he added.

When questioned about the over-the-top decisions taken by Justice Karnan, such as ordering the arrest of judges of the apex court under the PoA Act, Chandrudu refused to be drawn into the debate.

United they stand

One positive result of the Supreme Court judgment, Jayaraju says, is the fact that it has galvanised the SC and ST communities to unite.

“Together, we are over 30 percent of the population of the state, but political parties have been able to drive wedges between the different constituents. It is for the first time after the immediate aftermath of the Karamchedu incident that I have seen the community acting in such unison”, he added.

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