Supreme Court refuses to stay SC/ST Amendment Act, 2018

The Supreme Court today refused to stay the amendments to the Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act).

Petitions challenging the amendment came to be heard by a Bench of Justices AK Sikri, S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah, which refused to impose a stay on the operation of the amendment.

The Court then proceeded to refer the matter to the Chief Justice of India to list the same before an appropriate Bench and said that the petition challenging the amendment will be heard along with the review petitions filed against the Court’s previous judgment.

The Parliament had through an amendment in August, 2018 reversed the effect of the Supreme Court’s judgment in this regard.

A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices AK Goel and UU Lalit had ruled that prior sanction is necessary before making arrests for offences under the SC/ST Act. This direction was made with the intent to prevent the misuse of the SC/ST Act, given the serious penal consequences which would otherwise entail for the accused person.

This judgment was seen as a dilution of the SC/ST Act and it was met by nationwide protests by members of the SC/ ST communities.

The Central government had then filed a review petition against the verdict. It also passed an amendment to the SC/ST Act which nullified the effect of the judgment. By this amendment passed in August 2018, Section 18A was inserted into the SC/ST Act to re-instate the law as it stood prior to the Supreme Court’s judgement.

As the law stands, no prior sanction is required before proceeding against those accused of an offence under the SC/ST Act. Further, such accused persons are also excluded from availing anticipatory bail under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).