New Delhi, Sept. 22 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a PIL challenging the constitutional validity of the 2018 amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which restored restrictions on anticipatory bail.
The amended law had also removed the requirement of a preliminary inquiry before registration of an FIR and prior approval before arrest.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana rejected the petition filed by Brijbhushan Saini, saying that the amended provisions had already been upheld by the top court in 2020.
It also declined the submission of lawyer Vishnu Shankar Jain, appearing for Saini, that the 2020 verdict be reconsidered and said that adequate safeguards had already been laid down against possible misuse of the provisions.
Jain said that the statutory bar on anticipatory bail under the SC/ST Act amounted to "reverse discrimination" and contended that the provisions were susceptible to misuse.
The lawyer also referred to the low conviction rate in cases registered under the Act and questioned the manner in which compensation was being distributed under the statutory scheme.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.