Lucknow, Sept. 10 -- The court of special judge (SC/ST Act) on Tuesday awarded six months' imprisonment to a mason for lodging a false FIR under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against house owners in order to frame them.

However, the mason, Maiku Lal, got bail from the court as his prison term was less than three years.

Additional district judge, Vivekanand Sharan Tripathi, who is special judge SC/ST court, noted that the SC/ST Act was misused to harass and intimidate innocent persons.

If both the persons had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment under the SC/ST Act, they would have had to undergo a total of 10 years of imprisonment, the court said.

"The fundamental principle of India...