Against an order passed by a Special Court or Exclusive Special Court under the SC/ST Act, 1989, the sole remedy is an appeal under Section 14A of the said Act, rendering bail applications under Section 483 BNSS non-maintainable.

Order

1. The defect as pointed out by the Registry is that as per Section 14 A of Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (for short, 'the SC/ST Act, 1989') this criminal appeal seems not proper as no offence punishable under the SC/ST Act, 1989 has been made out against the petitioner.

2. This Court in S.B. Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 10113/2024 titled as Rahul Meena V/s State of Rajasthan decided on 01.10.2024 after considering the provisions of the SC/ST Act, 1989 held that against the order passed by the Exclusive Special Court or Special Court, the only remedy is an appeal under Section 14 A of the SC/ST Act, 1989. The observation in case of Rahul Meena (Supra) quoted as under:-

" 2. Section 14-A of the Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act of 1989') provides for an appeal against an order passed by the Special Court or an Exclusive Special Court, to the High Court both on facts and on law. Section 14-A of the Act of 1989 is quoted as under:-

"14A. Appeals.—(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974), an appeal shall lie, from any judgment, sentence or order, not being an interlocutory order, of a Special Court or an Exclusive Special Court, to the High Court both on facts and on law.

(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (3) of section 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974), an appeal shall lie to the High Court against an order of the Special Court or the Exclusive Special Court granting or refusing bail.

(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, every appeal under this section shall be preferred within a period of ninety days from the date of the judgment, sentence or order appealed from:

Provided that the High Court may entertain an appeal after the expiry of the said period of ninety days if it is satisfied that the appellant had sufficient cause for not preferring the appeal within the period of ninety days:

Provided further that no appeal shall be entertained after the expiry of the period of one hundred and eighty days.

(4) Every appeal preferred under sub-section (1) shall, as far as possible, be disposed of within a period of three months from the date of admission of the appeal."

3. Section 2 (bd) of the Act 1989 defines the Exclusive Special Court and Section 2(d) of the Act of 1989 defines the Special Court. Both the aforesaid Provisions of the Act of 1989 are quoted as under:-

"Exclusive Special Court" means the Exclusive Special Court established under sub-section (1) of section 14 exclusively to try the offences under this Act;

"Special Court" means a Court of Session specified as a Special Court in section 14;"

4. A similar kind of issue also came up before the Allahabad High Court Bench at Lucknow in Criminal Appeal No.1000/2018 Ghulam Rasool Khan & Ors. Vs. State of U.P. & Ors. and the reference was made to the Larger Bench. On the reference made by the Single Bench in that matter, the following questions were referred to the Larger Bench for consideration.

"(i) Whether a Single Judge of this Court while deciding Criminal Appeal (Defective) No. 523/2017 In re : Rohit Vs. State of U.P. and another vide judgment dated 29.08.2017 correctly permitted the conversion of appeal under Section 14 A of the Act, 1989 into a bail application by exercising the inherent powers under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C.?

(ii) Whether keeping in view the judgment of Rohit (supra), an aggri