SC to hear govt’s SC/ST review plea on May 4

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will hear the Centre’s plea for a review of its March 20 ruling which had placed additional safeguards in the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act to prevent any immediate arrests under the law, triggering protests by Dalits across the country.

On Friday, Attorney General KK Venugopal mentioned the Centre’s plea for a review of the ruling before a bench led by Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel first thing in the morning. Justice Goel then listed the plea for a review on May 4.

The review is done by the same bench, and hence the plea is usually dismissed. In this case, the case will be heard in open court at the insistence of the government, which claims that the ruling has diluted the rigour of the law protecting the weakest of the weak.


The court had in its ruling created a mechanism to prevent misuse of the law to harass bureaucrats for their bona fide actions. The ruling came in a case in which an employee invoked the Act against his superiors after they made adverse remarks in his annual confidential report.

The court quashed the case, but created a mechanism under which a government servant could be arrested under the Act only after a preliminary enquiry by a superior establishes prima facie guilt. An ordinary citizen cannot be immediately arrested either without the written orders of a senior police officer who finds him or her prima facie guilty.

The top court set a week’s deadline for the preliminary enquiry to be completed. The ruling sparked off protests by Dalits across the country over the dilution of the law.

This prompted the Centre to immediately move the SC seeking a review. Although the government claimed it was not heard in court before the ruling was delivered, the judgement showed the government did not oppose the mechanism to plug instances of misuse of the law.