The intention to insult or intimidate a member of a schedule caste or schedule tribe is essential to establish an offence under Section 3(1) of the SCST(POA) Act.

JUDGMENT

Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee, J. - The present revisional application has been preferred for setting aside the order no. 7 dated 22.4.2019 passed by Special Judge, 1st Court, Burdwan whereby the learned court accepted the charge sheet being charge-sheet no. 377 of 2018 dated 13.8.2018 filed under Section 341/323/506/34 of the Indian Penal Code in connection with Bardhaman Police Station case no. 464 of 2018 though originally the said Bardhaman Police Station case no. 464 of 2018 dated 7.7.2018 was also booked under Section 3 of the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (hereinafter referred to as SCST(POA) Act).

2. Petitioner's complaint in a nutshell in that over the issue of death of mother-in-law of opposite party no. 2 allegedly due to doctor's negligence, who happens to practice in the chamber of petitioner's medicine shop, opposite party No. 2 along with his men on 09.05.2018 attacked petitioner's medicine shop and abused petitioner by saying 'Sali choto loker jat' (Sali belongs to lower caste) and also assaulted the employee of medicine shop physically and threatened to kidnap petitioner and her daughter and ordered to close her shop.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner Mr. Saheb Banerjee contended that petitioner was humiliated and harassed by the opposite party no. 2 for which she went to the police station for lodging complain but police did not take any action, so she moved before the Judicial Magistrate, Purba Burdwan and as per direction of the concerned Magistrate, police started investigation treating her petition of complain as first information report. It is specifically alleged by the petitioner that investigating authority has conducted investigation which ended in charge-sheet but the investigating authority has not implicated the accused persons under any of the provisions of the SCST(POA) Act in the charge sheet, without any reason, though initially the case was registered under SCST(POA) Act. It is further alleged that the petitioner submitted a copy of the caste certificate during investigation but investigating officer in spite of receiving the same has made a false statement that victim could not supply her schedule caste certificate. In view of the same, the petitioner filed an application under Section 173 (8) of the Code of Criminal Procedure on 24.1.2019 with a prayer for further investigation but learned Special Judge, 1st Court, Burdwan did not allow the petitioner's prayer for further investigation.

Furthermore, the petitioner never wanted to implicate the accused no. 2, Soma Mukherjee but investigating officer with the nexus of accused person wilfully added Soma Mukherjee in this case. It is further argued by the petitioner that in the impugned order dated 22.4.2019, no reason has been shown by the court below as to why the petitioner's prayer for further investigation was disallowed. As such, the continuation of the present proceeding under Section 341/323/506/34 of the Indian Penal Code only without adding relevant provision under SCST (POA) Act before the learned court below, is bad in law.

This revisional application has been preferred for passing instruction upon the court for making further investigation under Section 173(8) of the Code of Criminal Procedure and to set aside the impugned order no. 7 dated 22.4.2019 passed by Special Judge, Burdwan thereby accepting the charge sheet being charge sheet no. 377 of 2018 filed under Section 341/323/506/34 of the Indian Penal Code, but dropped relevant provisions of SC/ST (POA) Act, 1989.

4. Learned counsel for the opposite party no 2 and 3 strenuously argued that no case under any of the provisions of the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 made out in the present context and as such there is no question of setting aside the impugned order. In this connection, he has referred two case laws reported in (2019) 6 SCC 268 and (2020) 10 SCC 710.

5. Learned counsel on behalf of the Sta