NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Friday ruled that insulting or humiliating an individual belonging to the SC or ST community without insinuating about his caste, tribe or the concept of untouchability would not be an offence under the stringent provisions of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra gave this ruling while granting anticipatory bail to Shajan Skaria, editor of an online Malayalam news channel, who was booked under SC/ST Act for calling CPM MLA P V Sreenijan, who belongs to the SC community, a ‘mafia don’ and was denied pre-arrest bail by trial court and the Kerala high court.
Accepting the arguments of senior advocates Sidharth Luthra and Gaurav Agrawal on behalf of the editor, SC said, “Not every intentional insult or intimidation of a member of an SC/ST community will result in a feeling of caste-based humiliation.
“In our opinion, there is nothing to even prima facie indicate that the appellant (Skaria), by publishing the video on YouTube, promoted or attempted to promote feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will against members of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. The video has nothing to do in general with members of SC or ST. His target was just the complainant (Sreenijan) alone.”
Writing a 70-page judgment, Justice Pardiwala said, “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 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 1989 Act.”
The intent to humiliate must be construed in the larger context in which the concept of humiliation of marginalised groups has been understood by various scholars, the bench said, adding, “It is not ordinary insult or intimidation which would amount to ‘humiliation’ that is sought to be made punishable under the 1989 Act.”
Referring to the ‘mafia don’ reference, the bench said, “Having regard to the reprehensible conduct and the nature of the derogatory statements made, the appellant (Skaria) at best could be said to have prima facie committed the offence of defamation punishable under Section 500 of the IPC. If that be so, it is always open for the complainant to prosecute the appellant accordingly.
“However, the complainant (Sreenijan) could not have invoked the provisions of the Act of 1989 only on the premise that he is member of Scheduled Caste, more so, when a prima facie conjoint reading of the transcript of the video and the complaint fails to disclose that the actions of the appellant were impelled by the caste identity of the complainant.”
