Offences against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes: untouchability, the PCR Act and the Atrocities Act

1. The constitutional framework

• Article 17: “Untouchability” is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden; the enforcement of any disability arising out of it is an offence punishable in accordance with law. Article 35 requires Parliament to make that law.
• Article 15(2): no disability as to access to shops, restaurants, wells, tanks, roads and places of public resort. Article 23: no forced labour.
• Article 46: the State shall protect the weaker sections, especially SCs and STs, from social injustice and exploitation.
• Articles 338 and 338A: the National Commissions for Scheduled Castes and for Scheduled Tribes.

2. The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955

Enacted as the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 under Articles 17 and 35, renamed and strengthened in 1976. Salient features:

• Religious disabilities (section 3): preventing a person, on the ground of untouchability, from entering a place of public worship, worshipping or using a sacred tank or well. Imprisonment of one to six months and fine.
• Social disabilities (section 4): denying access to shops, restaurants, hotels, public entertainment, water sources, roads, burial grounds, utensils, or the use of jewellery and dress.
• Refusing admission to hospitals and educational institutions (section 5), refusing to sell goods or render services (section 6).
• Other offences (section 7): preventing a person from exercising a right arising from abolition of untouchability; insulting a member of a Scheduled Caste on the ground of untouchability; preaching or justifying untouchability; social boycott of persons exercising such rights.
• Compulsory labour (section 7A): compelling a person on the ground of untouchability to do scavenging or sweeping is deemed a practice of untouchability.
• Collective fine (section 10A) on the inhabitants of an area concerned in the offences.
• Presumption (section 12): where the act is committed against a member of a Scheduled Caste, the court presumes it was committed on the ground of untouchability.
• Procedure: offences are cognizable and may be tried summarily (section 15); the Probation of Offenders Act does not apply to persons above fourteen (section 16A); a public servant who wilfully neglects the investigation of an offence is deemed to have abetted it (Explanation to section 10).
• State's duty (section 15A): legal aid, special courts, committees and periodic survey to ensure the rights are actually availed of.

Criticism: punishments were light, convictions few, and the presumption limited; caste violence (murder, rape, arson, dispossession of land) fell outside it. That led to the 1989 Act.

3. The SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989

Object: to prevent atrocities against members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, to provide special courts, and to provide relief and rehabilitation for victims. It was substantially amended in 2015 (Act 1 of 2016) and 2018.

• Offences (section 3(1)), committed by a person who is not a member of an SC or ST against a member, now a long list of clauses, including: forcing inedible substances into the mouth; dumping excreta or carcasses; garlanding with footwear or parading naked; wrongful occupation or dispossession of land; forced labour; interference with voting; false cases; intentional insult or intimidation with intent to humiliate in any place within public view (clause (r)); abusing by caste name in public view (clause (s)); intentionally touching an SC or ST woman in a sexual manner without consent (clause (w)); social or economic boycott; and obstructing the use of common property resources, wells, water-taps and bathing ghats (clause (za)).
• Punishment: generally six months to five years and fine. Section 3(2)(v): an IPC (now BNS) offence punishable with ten years or more, committed knowing the victim is an SC or ST, is punishable with imprisonment for life.
• Neglect of duties (section 4): a public servant (not himself SC or ST) who wilfully neglects his duties under the Act, including registering the complaint, reading it back and giving a copy, is punishable with six months to one year.
• Presumptions (section 8): one who gave financial assistance to the accused is presumed to have abetted; a group offence following a land dispute is presumed to be in furtherance of common intention; and knowledge of the victim's caste is presumed if the accused was acquainted with the victim or his family.
• Externment (section 10) of persons likely to commit offences in Scheduled Areas and tribal areas.
• Special Courts and Exclusive Special Courts (section 14) for speedy trial; they may take cognizance directly, the State must set up enough courts to dispose of cases within two months as far as possible, and trial is to proceed day to day; appeals under section 14A.
• Rights of victims and witnesses (section 15A), added in 2015: protection, notice of every proceeding, the right to be heard on bail and discharge, and relief.
• No anticipatory bail (section 18), upheld in State of M.P. v. Ram Kishna Balothia, 1995 INSC 99, (1995) 3 SCC 221, on the ground that atrocity offences form a distinct class and the victims' fear of intimidation justifies the exclusion.

4. The 2018 controversy

• In Dr. Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra, 2018 INSC 248, (2018) 6 SCC 454, a two-judge bench, citing misuse, directed that a preliminary inquiry be held before an FIR, that arrest of a public servant need the approval of the appointing authority and of others the approval of the Senior Superintendent of Police, and that anticipatory bail is not barred where no prima facie case exists.
• Parliament responded with section 18A (2018): no preliminary inquiry is required for an FIR, the investigating officer needs no approval for arrest, and section 438 of the old Code (now section 482 BNSS) does not apply notwithstanding any judgment.
• On review, in Union of India v. State of Maharashtra, 2019 INSC 1102, (2020) 4 SCC 761, a three-judge bench recalled the directions on preliminary inquiry and prior approval, saying the Court could not presume misuse by a whole class or add conditions Parliament had not enacted.
• In Prathvi Raj Chauhan v. Union of India, 2020 INSC 157, (2020) 4 SCC 727, the Court upheld section 18A, adding that a court may still quash proceedings or grant anticipatory bail where the complaint does not make out a prima facie case.
• Hitesh Verma v. State of Uttarakhand, 2020 INSC 636, (2020) 10 SCC 710: an insult is an offence under section 3(1)(r) only if it is because the victim belongs to an SC or ST, and it must be in a place within public view; an insult inside a building with no member of the public present does not qualify.

5. Is the Atrocities Act an effective control on social deviance?

• For: it names the specific humiliations of caste practice as crimes, punishes negligent officials, reverses the burden on knowledge of caste, gives victims rights in the process and compensation, and denies anticipatory bail where intimidation is likely.
• Against: low conviction rates, owing to hostile witnesses, delayed investigation and compromises under pressure; poor functioning of special courts; and the allegations of misuse that produced the 2018 judgment. The answer to misuse is the power to quash and to punish false complaints, not a general dilution of the Act, which is where the law settled in 2020.

How this is examined

Every year in Unit V. January 2026: the Atrocities Act as a law to prevent social deviance, critically examined; or the salient features of the PCR Act. June 2025: the legal framework to prevent untouchability. February 2025: salient features of the Atrocities Act, or of the PCR Act. For the “framework” question, take Article 17 and its companions, then the PCR Act, then the Atrocities Act. For a critical examination, the 2018 sequence of cases is essential.