Section 18 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 bars the grant of anticipatory bail in cases involving offenses under the Act, unless the complaint does not make out a prima facie case for the applicability of the Act.

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A.F.R.

Court No. - 77

Case :- CRIMINAL MISC ANTICIPATORY BAIL APPLICATION

U/S 438 CR.P.C. No. - 10958 of 2022

Applicant :- Sohit Kumar And 2 Others

Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another

Counsel for Applicant :- Gaurav Kakkar

Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.,Manoj Kumar Tripathi,Vinod

Kumar Tirpathi

Hon'ble Mrs. Manju Rani Chauhan,J.

1. Heard Mr. Gaurav Kakkar, learned counsel for the applicants, Mr.

Manoj Kumar Tripathi, learned counsel for the opposite party no.2,

Mr. Amit Singh Chauhan, learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the

record.

2. The present application has been moved seeking anticipatory bail in

S.T. No.145 of 2022 arising out of Case Crime No. 840 of 2021,

under Sections 452, 354, 323, 325, 504, 506 IPC and Section 3(2)

(V)a, 3(1)r and 3(1)s of S.C./S.T. Act, P.S.-Kotwali Shahar,

District-Bijnor, with the prayer that in the event of arrest, applicants

may be released on bail.

3. A preliminary objection for admissibility of jurisdiction of the

aforesaid bail application vide concurrent jurisdiction enshrined in

Section 438 of Cr.P.C. has been raised by learned counsel for the

opposite parties.

4. While answering the preliminary objection, the learned counsel for

the applicant submits that there can be no absolute bar against grant of

anticipatory bail in cases under the SC/ST Act if no prima facie case is

made out or where on judicial scrutiny the complaint is found to be

prima facie mala fide. As per the settled law of the Apex Court passed

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in case of Prathvi Raj Chauhan vs. Union of India & Others

reported in (2020) 4 SCC 727, if the complaint does not make out a

prima facie case for the applicability of the provisions of the SC/ST

Act, 1989, the bar created by Sections 18 and 18A(i) shall not apply.

The only caveat is that the power has to be used sparingly and is not

to be used so as to convert the jurisdiction into that under Section 438

of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

5. Thus, while entering into the merits of the case to see whether the

bar under Section 18 and 18A(i) of the SC/ST Act is applicable to the

present case, the applicant counsel has placed the following facts:-

i) An FIR has been lodged by Smt. Sunita on 08.12.2021 at about

13:50 p.m. against the present applicants and one Anil Kumar

alleging therein that the victim's husband has a grocery shop

and while asking for the goods, Anil Kumar, the named accused

entered the shop and when the victim restrained him from

entering the shop, asking him to stand outside the shop, finding

her to be all alone in the shop, with bad intention, caught hold

of the victim and tried to outrage her modesty. The aforesaid

accused person used caste indicative words like “Chamar

Chatta”. Alarm was raised by the victim, on which her son,

Manish and brother-in-law, Dinesh reached the shop and

thereafter, the aforesaid accused, Anil Kumar called other co-

accused persons, who are the applicants in the present case and

all of them with common intention entered the house of the

victim having rod, danda and sharp edged weapon in their

hands and assaulted the victim and her family members. The

accused Anil Kumar was carrying countrymade pistol whereas

Sohit (applicant no.1) was having iron rod. The accused Akash

and Akshay (applicant nos.2 &3 respectively) had carried

danda with them. The aforesaid accused persons with intention

to kill the victim, her son and brother-in-law assaulted them. On

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hearing the noise of the victim and her family members, people

gathered there to save the aforestated persons. Thereafter, the

accused persons while running away from the place used caste

indicating words.

ii) The FIR has been lodged after a delay of about one month and

three days without giving any plausible explanation for the

same, which falsifies the entire story.

iii)Only general allegations have been made against the applicants

in the first information report.

iv) It was a sudden fight between the parties and the