Over 39,000 cases filed under SC/ST Act in 2012: Min

The year 2012 saw a total of 39,512 cases registered under the SC/ST Act while the conviction rate in those stood at a dismal 23.8 per cent, Parliament was told.
Sharing the data on cases under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act), 1989, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment added that 83.1 per cent of these cases were pending in courts.
According to the report, 10 states accounted for 92.6 per cent of the 33,592 cases which were registered over alleged atrocities against Scheduled Caste people.
Of these, a maximum 6,201 cases were registered in Uttar Pradesh followed by Rajasthan (5,559) and Bihar (4,821).

Other states which made up the top 10 here were: Andhra Pradesh (3,048), Madhya Pradesh (2,875), Karnataka (2,594), Odisha (2,265), Tamil Nadu (1,638), Maharashtra (1,086) and Gujarat (1,026), the report added.
As to cases related to atrocities against people belonging to the Scheduled Tribes, 10 states accounted for 94.2 per cent of the 5,579 cases filed.

The highest number of such cases were registered in Rajasthan (1,351) followed by Madhya Pradesh (1,218) and Odisha (688).
In the above respect, Andhra Pradesh had 666 cases followed by Karnataka (373), Chhattisgarh (344), Maharashtra (307), Jharkhand (287), Gujarat (221) and Kerala (124), the report said.

Of a grand total of 1,09,721 cases related to atrocities against SCs (including those that were brought forward by courts during the year) 4,075 resulted in convictions and 12,861 in acquittal while 1,117 were withdrawn.
A total of 91,668 such cases are pending, the report said.
As regards cases of atrocities against STs, 20,727 of these went to court of which 789 resulted in convictions, 2,702 in acquittals. The number of cases withdrawn stood at 465.