Act was misused against me: Samajwadi Party’s IP Singh

Lucknow: On the day the Supreme Court upheld the amended law to check atrocities against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Samajwadi Party spokesperson IP Singh said that he was wrongly booked under the act when he was a minister in the Kalyan Singh ministry more than 20 years ago.

“I was the chairman of labour and construction cooperative federation, when large-scale corruption was brewing in the department. I was wrongly implicated under the SC/ST Act by one of the engineers according to a plot designed by the MD. They alleged I had beaten up the engineer who belonged to a Scheduled Caste. I got to know about the FIR much later, in 2010, and had to spend four days in jail. Even the engineer admitted to me later that he was made a part of a larger conspiracy and the contentious legislation was resorted to because there was no other way to keep me off work. I had to pursue the case for many years before I was acquitted. This is a grey area often misused in villages,” Singh told ET.