The single judge bench of the Jharkhand High Court held that it is necessary that the assault should have been with intent to humiliate and any altercation of dispute will not, ipso facto, attract the criminal provision of the special Act, unless and until the said act was intended to humiliate the member of Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. Free fight manner which took place cannot by any stretch of imagination be said to have been with intent to humiliate the informant by caste name.
Brief facts
The factual matrix of the case is that the appellant came into a drunken situation and abused the informant with his case name while he was standing in front of his house, in order to save himself, he entered his house, and then, both the accused persons started pelting stones. The case was registered under Sections 341, 323, 448, 504, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 (x) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. After investigation, the charge sheet was filed under Sections 341, 323, 448, 504, 34 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 (1)(x) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Therefore, the judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by the learned trial court is under challenge in this appeal.
Contentions of the Appellant
The Appellant submitted that it was the informant who assaulted the appellant and the case is also registered for the same under Sections 341, 323, 307, 504 of the Indian Penal Code and the present case is lodged by the informant as a counter case by invoking special provision of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. It was furthermore submitted that no independent witnesses are examined in the case. Also, the assault that took place was with regard to the dispute between Diwakant Das who was the cousin of the informant, which the appellants tried to mediate and in no way related to the caste of the informant.
Observations of the court
The Hon’ble Court observed that the victim must have purposefully insulted or intimidated a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe member with the goal of humiliating them in any public view in order to establish a case under Section 3 (1)(x) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The assault must have been committed with the aim of humiliating the victim, and a disagreement will not automatically fall within the criminal provisions of the special act unless the act is committed in order to humiliate the member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. The free fight manner which took place cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to have been with intent to humiliate the informant by caste name.
The court relied upon the judgment titled Hitesh Verma v. State of Uttarakhand.
Based on these considerations, the court was of the view that the judgment of conviction and order of sentence under Section 3 (1)(x) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 deserves to be set aside against the appellant and in view of the Section 323 of Indian Penal Code, the court affirmed the conviction.
The decision of the court
With the above direction, the court dismissed the appeal with the modification in the sentence.
Case title: Baijnath Singh Vs The State of Jharkhand & Anr.
Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Gautam Kumar Choudhary
Case No.: Cr. Appeal (S.J.) No. 419 of 2012
Advocate for the Appellant: Mr. Indu Shekhar Gupta, Advocate
Advocate for the State: Mr. Fahad Allam, APP
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