IMPORTANT POINT
The court quashed proceedings under the SC/ST Act due to lack of public view in the alleged incident, emphasizing the need for specific ingredients to establish the offence.

ORDER :

The instant petition under Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973[For short ‘Cr.P.C’] has been filed by the petitioner/Accused seeking to quash the proceedings against him in Crime No.2042 of 2020 of Anakapalli Town Police Station, Visakhapatnam District which was registered for the offences punishable under Sections 3 (1)(r) and 3 (1)(s) Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989[For short ‘the PoA Act’].

2. The allegations mentioned in the complaint, in brief, are as follows:

a. Respondent No.2/de facto complainant, who belongs to SC Mala community has been working as Telugu Lecturer in AMAL College, Anakapalle, since 2000 for which, the Petitioner is the Correspondent. On 24.09.2019, Petitioner in his chambers, abused Respondent No.2 in the name of his caste, saying “Maala Naa Kodaka Neeku Udyogam Ivvadame Ekkuva Edi Tappu Edi Oppu Ani Maake Chebutaavaa”and thereby insulted him. Petitioner intentionally abused Respondent No.2 in the name of his caste in the presence of others.

b. Petitioner has not granted arrears of salary and arrears of increment to Respondent No.2, thereby causing financial troubles and mental agony. The Petitioner by issuing memos and show-cause notices without any cause to Respondent No.2 and made him not to attend the college for 73 days. With an Order of the Court, Respondent No.2 joined in the college on 05.10.2020. Petitioner abused Respondent No.2 in the name of his caste and insulted him.

c. As such, he gave the report to the Police which was registered as a case in Crime No.2402 of 2020. The said crime is sought to be quashed by petitioner/Accused, vide this Petition. Hence, the Crl.P.

3. Respondent No.2 filed counter with the following averments, in brief:

a. Despite various measures to improve the socio-economic conditions of SCs and STs, they remain vulnerable and are being subjected to various offences, indignities, humiliations, and open and deliberate harassment. On 24.09.2019, when Respondent No.2 visited the Petitioner and made a humble request that it would not be appropriate to send the teachers to Office Superintendent for applying Casual Leaves, the Petitioner, in response, hurled insults, uttering words with abusive un-parliamentary language, by touching the caste in the presence of all people as mentioned in the complaint. Even prior to the date of incident, number of times, Petitioner insulted and humiliated Respondent No.2 with reference to his caste, which is unbearable.

b. Respondent No.2 submitted complaints on 05.07.2020, 13.07.2020 to the police. But the police have not registered any case. Hence, he submitted the complaint on 20.07.2020 to the Superintendent of Police. On 27.07.2020, he submitted report to the District Collector. The District Collector referred it to the Superintendent of Police with a request to conduct detailed enquiry and take necessary action. The police instructed him to submit one more complaint.

c. In continuation of earlier complaints, he submitted another complaint on 07.10.2020 that is how the present crime has been registered. Such complaint may be treated as part of police records.

d. Respondent No.2 further submits that apart from the allegations in the complaint, Petitioner indirectly also abused him in the presence of all on the very same day in college premises and he was granted bail in a case registered against him for the offence under Section 306 of the I.P.C. As such, the contention of the Petitioner that false complaint was lodged against him as a revenge to the official proceedings, is imaginary.

e. A mistake crept in the first page at second line from bottom relating to the year, which is noted as 2020 instead of 2019 and that cannot be a ground to quash the Criminal case. During the course of investigation, the investigating officer recorded his statement, wherein he categorically stated about the incident happened on 24.09.2019. Trial of the case is still to be held.

f. While exercising jurisdic