New Delhi, April 10 (IANS) The Delhi High Court has quashed an FIR lodged against an Associate Professor of Lakshmibai College over allegations of assault and caste-based abuse, observing that allegations of caste-based humiliation were introduced as an “afterthought” and lacked the essential ingredients required to invoke provisions of the SC/ST Act.Allowing a writ petition filed by Ranjit Kaur, a single-judge Bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna set aside an FIR registered in 2021 at Bhar…
Latest SC/ST Act News & Updates
New Delhi, March 24 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld an Andhra Pradesh High Court ruling holding that a person who has converted to Christianity and continues to profess and practice the faith cannot claim the status of a Scheduled Caste. A Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and N.V. Anjaria said that “no person who professes a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism can be regarded as a member of the Scheduled Caste,” adding that conversion to any other religion res…
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) When a regulation vests wide discretionary power in authorities without clear guardrails, it stops being reformist and begins to look coercive. That is precisely how the University Grants Commission’s latest equity regulations have been perceived across campuses and beyond. The backlash they triggered was not against the principle of equality or social justice, but against the architecture of the rules themselves — marked by vague definitions, sweeping mandates and an en…
Jaipur, Jan 29 (IANS) The SC-ST Special Court in Rajasthan’s Jaipur has framed charges against former MLA Girraj Singh Malinga under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code and the SC-ST Act, including attempt to murder, a charge that carries the possibility of life imprisonment upon conviction. The charges were framed by Special Judge Vidyanand Shukla against Malinga and seven other accused in the case.The case dates back to March 28, 2022, when Malinga was serving as the MLA from the Bari a…
New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS) The Allahabad High Court has quashed a criminal case, including charges under the SC/ST Act, arising from alleged irregularities in land allotments made more than two decades ago and related revenue proceedings. Allowing a criminal appeal, a single-judge Bench of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav observed that a mere reference to Scheduled Caste land or the caste status of the informant is insufficient to attract the provisions of the special law.Justice Yadav held that the ca…
New Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS) The Calcutta High Court has ruled that alleged caste-based abuses hurled over the telephone, and not in any place within public view, would not prima facie attract the stringent provisions of the SC/ST Act. While disposing of an application for anticipatory bail, a single judge Bench of Justice Jay Sengupta observed that since the allegations in the FIR pertained to abuses allegedly made over a phone call, the essential ingredients of Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the …