The court affirms the seriousness of caste-based charges under the SC/ST (POA) Act, endorsing bail for some accused while denying it to the second due to severe allegations.

JUDGMENT

Dated this the 10^th day of March, 2026 This criminal appeal has been filed under Section 14A of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 as amended in 2018 [hereinafter referred to as 'SC/ST POA Act, 2018' for short], challenging order dated 04.02.2026 in Crl.M.C. No.3/2026 on the files of the Special Court for SC/ST (POA) Act cases, Nedumangad, whereby the learned Special Judge dismissed the anticipatory bail plea at the instance of the appellants, who are accused Nos.1 to 3 in Crime No.1665/2025 of Medical College Police Station.

2. Heard the learned counsel for the appellants and the learned Public Prosecutor, in detail. Also heard the learned counsel appearing for the defacto complainant. Perused the verdict under challenge and the relevant materials available.

3. Parties in this appeal shall be referred as ‘accused’ and ‘defacto complainant’, hereafter.

4. The prosecution case is that, on 27.11.2025 at

5.30 pm the defacto complainant, a Medical Officer, belongs to scheduled caste community, while driving her car to Ulloor Junction, a two wheeler parked on the road in front of Santhosh Nagar causing hindrance to her car. When she was requesting the locals to remove the two wheeler from the way, the first accused restrained the person from removing the vehicle. It is alleged that second accused, who is the brother of the first accused uttered abusive words and made castiest remarks against the defacto complainant and 3^rd accused kicked her father and other accused have also assaulted her father. It is further alleged that 2^nd accused pressed her right breast and all the accused hurled castiest words against her. It is alleged that at about 7.30 p.m on 27.10.2025, the second accused and his friends have insulted and teased the defacto complainant. Thus, the accused persons, who do not belong to either Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe community intentionally insulted and intimidated the defacto complainant, who is a member of Scheduled Caste community. On this premise, initially the prosecution alleges commission of offences punishable under Sections 75 (1)(i), 75(i)(iv), 75(2), 75(3), 115(2), 296(b) read with 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 [hereinafter referred as ‘ BNS ’ for short] and under Sections 3 (1)(r), 3(1)(s) and 3(2)(va) of the SC/ST (POA) Act, by the accused persons. During investigation, the offence under Section 3 (1)(s) of the SC/ST (POA) Act was deleted and now the investigation is going on for the other offences.

5. The learned counsel for the appellants argued that, the learned Special Judge went wrong in dismissing the anticipatory bail plea at the instance of the appellants, where the offence are not primarily made out. He read out the First Information Statement of the defacto complainant as a whole in support of his contentions. According to him, even though the occurrence was at about 7.30 hours on 27.10.2025, the First Information Statement given by the defacto complainant was recorded only on 12.12.2025. Thereafter on 27.11.2025, there was an altercation between the defacto complainant and accused persons in the presence of the people in the locality and Annexure-1 complaint was lodged by one Sukumari, who witnessed the occurrence against the defacto complainant and her father and the same was acted upon by the Police and as per Annexure-2, the status of the same was recorded as ‘closed’. Thereafter, this complaint was loged by the defacto complainant as against the accused persons. According to the learned counsel for the appellants, the entire dispute arose out of some vehicle block occurred on a na