Innocent citizens cannot be terrorised by SC/ST Act provisions, says SC

Innocents cannot be terrorised by the provisions of the SC/ST Act and their fundamental rights need to be protected, the Supreme Court today said as it refused to keep its March 20 verdict in abeyance.

The apex court said that it is not against the SC/ST Act and the "provisions of anticipatory bail have been introduced as unlike other laws, no forum was available for the innocents to seek remedy under the Act".

"We have said that innocents should not penalised. The innocents cannot be terrorised by the provisions of the SC/ST Act. We don't want to deprive anyone from right to life and we make ourselves very clear that we are not against the Act or the complainants," a bench of justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and U U Lalit said while justifying directions given in the March 20 verdict which created much furore across the country.

Several states were rocked by violence and clashes yesterday following a 'Bharat bandh' call given by several SC/ST organisations protesting the top court's March 20 order. Eleven people died in the violence.

The bench, which was hearing the Centre's review petition in open court, said that its verdict can be only be reviewed if there is a "patent error" in law and added that the fundamental rights of innocents cannot be taken away.

It said that mandate of court is to protect the Constitutional rights and "fundamental rights of citizens has to be kept at the highest pedal".

"Rights of innocents cannot be taken away without giving any remedy to them," it said and added "people who are agitating may have not read the order. They might not know what is in the order or they may have been misled with people having vested interest".

In response to submission of Attorney General K K Venugopal that Article 21 also applies to victims of atrocities, the bench said that Article 21 of the Constitution equally applies to all the citizens and none of the provisions of SC/ST Act has been diluted.

"We have only given effect what was in the Act to only safeguard the interests of the innocents from being arrested," the bench said.

It added that "liberty of the innocents cannot be allowed to be taken away. If no forum is there, then some forum in court has to be there to protect the interest of innocent citizens."