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28.01.2026

15

sb

CRR 1719 of 2025

Rimi Chowdhury & Ors.

Vs.

The State of West Bengal & Anr.

Mr. Avijit Ghosal …for the petitioners

Mr. Anand Keshari

Ms. Sudeshna Das …for the State

The petitioners herein have assailed the proceeding being

Special case no. 14 of 2024 arising out of Baranagar Police Station

case no. 134 of 2024 dated 24.3.2024 under Sections

341/323/352/506/34 of the IPC read with Section 3 of the

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities)

Act, (in short, SCST Act), presently pending before learned Special

Judge, Barasat.

Being aggrieved by the aforesaid proceeding, learned counsel

for the petitioners submits that the allegations levelled against the

petitioners were not substantiated during investigation. The

opposite party no. 2 in order to wreck vengeance and in gross

abuse of the process of law, has initiated the proceeding. He

further submits that even if the materials, collected by the

Investigating agency during investigation, coupled with the

allegations contained in the written complaint are taken to be true,

it does not make out offences alleged against the petitioners. The

Investigating agency during investigation, did not find any evidence

relating to the assault or voluntarily causing hurt by the petitioners

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and therefore, the allegations of voluntarily causing hurt as alleged

in the written complaint is nothing but conjectures and surmises

created for the purpose of the instant proceeding. He further

submits that no abusive words were hurled to the opposite

party/complainant in order to attract the provisions of SCST Act.

There appears to be no allegation of wrongful restraint or criminal

intimidation also in the written complaint and therefore, Section

341/506 of the IPC has got no application in the present case.

Therefore, continuance of proceeding any further will be mere

abuse of process of the court and therefore he prayed for quashing

of the entire proceeding.

Learned counsel for the State opposed the prayer contending

that during investigation, police has collected incriminating

materials against the accused, therefore, this is not a fit case where

the proceeding can be quashed by the court, invoking this court’s

jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure

read with Section 528 of the BNSS.

Having heard learned counsel for the petitioners and the

State, it appears that the allegation levelled against the petitioners

inter alia are to the effect that on 25.2.2024 around 13.10 hours,

the petitioners went to the opposite party no. 2’s house and barged

on the door and when he came out of his house, the petitioners

attacked him, beat him with shoe and abused him by uttering the

words like “lower caste”, “scheduled caste” etc. and had also

threated him to drive from the apartment. On hearing shouting of

the accused persons/petitioners Avijit Biswas, Birojit Biswas,

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Susanta Banerjee, Tanmoy Saha and many others were assembled

at that time on the spot.

On perusal of statements recorded by investigating agency

under Section 161 of the Cr.P.C. it appears that aforesaid FIR

mentioned witnesses namely, Avijit and Birojit, clearly stated that

they could only understand that both complainant and accused

persons were quarrelling with each other but subject matter of

quarrel is not known to them. Other two witnesses namely Susanta

and Tanmoy have stated that they know nothing about the incident

as alleged and even they were not present on the spot.

Therefore, the allegations levelled in the FIR even if taken to

be true, it is clear that the words allegedly uttered during quarrel

does not refer to any castigation for an offence to be established

under the SCST Act. It is not enough to merely prove an altercation

took place between a non-SC/ST person and a member of the

SC/ST community. The core requirement is that the offence must

have been committed specifically on account of the victim

belonging to an SC/ST community. Therefore mere insulting or

intimidating a member of the SC/ST community may not be