The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a plea challenging the 2018 amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which restored restrictions on anticipatory bail and removed the requirement of a preliminary inquiry before registration of an FIR under the Act.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana was hearing the plea.

The petitioner argued that the amended provisions were resulting in reverse discrimination against persons belonging to other castes. The Bench, however, did not accept the contention and observed that safeguards are already available under the law, including judicial scrutiny of whether a prima facie case under the SC/ST Act is made out.

Challenge to Section 18A

The petition challenged the insertion of Section 18A through the 2018 amendment. The amendment was enacted after the Supreme Court's judgment in Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra (2018), which had directed safeguards concerning preliminary inquiry and arrest and held that the bar on anticipatory bail under the SC/ST Act was not absolute.

Parliament subsequently amended the law to negate the effect of those directions.

In 2020, the Supreme Court in Prathvi Raj Chauhan v. Union of India upheld the constitutional validity of the 2018 amendment. 

The present petitioner argued that Parliament could not simply nullify the earlier judgment without first curing the defects identified by the Court.

The Bench, however, noted that the constitutional validity of the amendment had already been upheld and declined to reopen the issue.

Petitioner Questions Compensation to Victims

The petitioner also raised concerns regarding compensation paid to victims under the SC/ST Act.

Counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted that approximately ₹493 crore had been distributed as compensation and argued that the scheme was effectively encouraging people to lodge FIRs.

The Bench was not persuaded to entertain the plea and declined to proceed with the challenge.

The Supreme Court has, in other recent cases, reiterated that the SC/ST Act's provisions require the statutory ingredients of an offence to be prima facie established; for instance, the Court has held that proceedings cannot continue mechanically where the allegations do not disclose the necessary ingredients of the offence.