JUDGMENT :

Shree Prakash Singh, J.

1. Heard Shri Sameer Singh, Advocate assisted by Shri Shashank Singh, learned Counsel for the appellants, Shri Anirudh Kumar Singh, learned A.G.A.-I for the State.

2. This criminal appeal under Section 14A(1) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 has been filed with a prayer to quash the summoning order dated 04.02.2023 under Section 147, 323, 326-A, 504 of IPC and 3(1)X SC/ST Act, 1989 arising out of Complaint Case No. 118 of 2019 (Jagannath Vs. Sitaram & Ors.) pending before the learned Special Judge, SC/ST Act, Ambedkar Nagar and the entire criminal proceedings arising out of the aforementioned complaint case.

3. Learned Counsel appearing for the appellants submit that the appellants are innocent and have falsely been implicated in the instant matter. He submits that the First Information Report was lodged on 09.01.2017 and thereafter, the Investigating Officer conducted investigation and found no material against the appellant so far as the allegations leveled in the First Information Report is concerned and thus the final report was submitted on 05.07.2017. On such final report, the complainant filed the protest application on 06.06.2018 and the same was treated as a complaint case and the Magistrate and learned trial Court has recorded the statement of the complainant as well as the witnesses under Section 200 & 202 of the Cr.P.C. He has drawn attention of this Court towards the protest application, which reveals that the allegation is regarding the fact that the accused persons attacked over the injured as well as other family members and thereafter, they entered into the house of the complainant and have beaten and poured certain inflammable substance over the son of the complainant and as a result, he got burnt.

4. The contention of the Counsel for the complainant is that along with other sections of the IPC, the Magistrate has summoned the appellants under Section 3(1)X of the SC/ST Act. He has further drawn attention of this Court towards the statement of the complainant, which has been annexed on Page-100 and has referred that the complainant himself has stated before the trial Court that the incident took place inside of the house and after hue and cry of the complainant, the village people came over there and the appellants were rescued. He further submits that the learned trial Court has ignored the fact that the incident did not take place in public view and therefore, the summons under Section 3(1)X of the SC/ST Act could not have been issued against the appellants.

5. In support of his contention, he has placed reliance on a judgment reported in (2020) 10 SCC 710; Hitesh Verma Vs. State of Uttarakhand & Anr.; and has referred Paragraphs 14, 17 & 18 of the said case. Paragraphs 14, 17 & 18 of the judgment are quoted hereunder:-

"14. Another key ingredient of the provision is insult or intimidation in "any place within public view". What is to be regarded as "place in public view" had come up for consideration before this Court in the judgment reported as Swaran Singh V. State. The Court had drawn distinction between the expression "public place" and "in any place within public view". It was held that if an offence is committed outside the building e.g. in a lawn outside a house, and the lawn can be seen by someone from the road or lane outside the boundary wall, then the lawn would certainly be a place within the public view. On the contrary, if the remark is made inside a building, but some members of the public are there (not merely relatives or friends) then it would not be an offence since it is not in the public view. The Court held as under:

"28. It has been alleged in the FIR that Vinod Nagar, the first informant, was insulted by Appellants 2 and 3 (by calling him a "chamar") when he stood near the car which was parked at the gate of the premises. In our opinion, this was certainly a place within public view, since the gate of a hous