The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for specific details and the need for the insult or intimidation to be made in a place within public view to establish a prima facie case under the Atrocities Act.

JUDGEMENT :

Sunil B. Shukre, J.

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally by consent of the learned counsel appearing for the parties.

2. The applicant No.1 is the Principal of Dr. Arun Motghare College, while the applicant Nos.2, 3 and 4 are the employees of the said College. It appears that due to some misconduct on the part of the respondent No.2, the departmental enquiries have been held against him. The last chargesheet that was issued to the respondent No.2 is dated 3-6-2019, which levels several charges of misconduct against him.

3. The respondent No.2 thereafter filed a police complaint against the applicants alleging his humiliation and being subjected to abuses on caste basis by the applicants. However, the concerned police officer, after making enquiries, found no substance in the complaint and, therefore, submitted a report to the Superintendent of Police, Bhandara, on 13-10-2018 stating therein that no case was made out by the respondent No.2 for registration of the offences against the applicants. In the said report submitted to the Superintendent of Police, Bhandara, the Sub-Divisional Police Officer, Paoni, has given details of various acts of misconduct on the part of the respondent No.2. It is not known as to what action thereafter was taken by the Superintendent of Police, Bhandara in the present matter. But, one thing is certain that no offence was registered against the applicants.

4. The respondent No.2 had, meanwhile, filed an application under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure against the applicant Nos.1 and 2 containing almost similar allegations. In this complaint, the respondent No.2 alleged that the applicant Nos.1 and 2 intentionally subjected the respondent No.2 to physical and economic hardships and harassment on the ground that the respondent No.2 belonged to Scheduled Caste category. The respondent No.2 also alleged that by issuing a false chargesheet to him, the applicant Nos.1 and 2 wanted to only see that the respondent No.2 was removed from the service by hook or crook.

5. The learned Magistrate, however, rejected the said application for want of jurisdiction. The respondent No.2 thereafter filed another application under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure before the Special Court, Bhandara, containing the same allegations. This time, the respondent No.2 also added one more allegation. He alleged that the applicant Nos.1 and 2 were in the habit of giving caste based abuses to the respondent No.2 and for that they would on and off say that the respondent No.2 being a Chambhar by caste did not deserve any job in an Educational Institution and his right place was in the street and his right job was of polishing of footwears of others.

6. The learned Special Judge, who was the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Bhandara, found that the allegations so made in the application were vague and, therefore, further found that no prima facie case was made out against the applicant Nos.1 and 2 under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (for short, “the Atrocities Act”). On these grounds, the learned Special Judge rejected the said application by his order dated 15-12-2018.

7. The respondent No.2 did not challenge the legality and correctness or otherwise of the order dated 15-12-2018 passed by the learned Special Judge and thus the said order attained finality.

8. Thereafter, when another chargesheet was issued for initiating the departmental enquiry against the respondent No.2 in the month of June 2019, the respondent No.2 lodged an F.I.R. with Police Station Adyal, District Bhandara, on 13-7-2019 against these applicants. In this F.I.R., in addition to the applicant Nos.1 and 2, the applicant No.3 was also added as an accused. However, the nature of allegations did not change. Same allegations, as were in the previous complaint, have been made in this complaint. In this complaint as well, it is alleged