THE HON’BLE SMT.JUSTICE TIRUMALA DEVI EADA

ORDER:

This Criminal Petition is filed by the petitioners-accused Nos.1 to 3 seeking to quash the proceedings in SC No.655 of 2024 on the file of Special Court for the trial of SC/ST (PoA) Act, 1989 cum VII Additional District and Sessions Judge, Ranga Reddy District at L.B. Nagar, for the offences under Sections 323, 420, 498(A), 504, 506 IPC and Section 3 of the Dowry Prohibition Act (for short ‘DP Act’) and 3(1)(r)(s) and 3(2)(va) of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 2015 (for short ‘SC & ST Act’)

2. Heard Sri Mir Mukarram Ali, learned counsel for the petitioners and Sri Jithender Rao Veeramalla, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the respondent No.1-State.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioners has submitted that the petitioners herein are the husband and in-laws of the de facto complainant and that they never harassed her at any point of time. He further submitted that though the complaint was lodged against accused Nos.1 to 7, the case against accused Nos.4 to 7 was proved wrong during the course of investigation and thus, the charge sheet was laid only against accused Nos.1 to 3 i.e. petitioners herein. He further submitted that there is no harassment even as per the statements of witnesses and if there are any marital disputes between the accused No.1 and the de facto complainant, the said allegations cannot be attributed to the other petitioners and further there will not be any such allegation to attract the offences under SC and ST Act. The marital disputes would be within the four corners of a house and thus, no such offence alleged to have been occurred in public view. Therefore, the offences under Section 3(1)(r)(s) and 3(2)(va) of the SC and ST Act does not get attracted in this case. He, thus, stated that there is no truth in the allegations and no such atrocities ever committed by the petitioners. He therefore, prayed to quash the proceedings against the petitioners. He further relied upon the decision in Crl.P. No.3799 of 2021 wherein a coordinate Bench of this Court has quashed the proceedings against the petitioner therein.

4. Learned Additional Public Prosecutor has submitted that there are specific allegations against the petitioners, who are the husband and parents-in-law of the de facto complainant. He further submitted that the statement of LW.1 specifically makes out the allegations to attract the offences under SC and ST Act.

He, therefore, prayed to dismiss the petition.

5. Perused the record.

6. The contents of the complaint and the statement of L.W.1 points out specific allegations that accused No.2 was not even accepting water from the hands of the de facto complainant (LW.1) as she belongs to Madiga community and abused her in filthy language by touching her caste name and the specific abusive words are also mentioned in the complaint. It is further alleged that when the de facto complainant was blessed with a baby girl and she joined her matrimonial home, on the instigation of accused Nos.2 and 3, accused No.1 treated her harshly by assaulting her and when she conceived for the second time, accused No.1 suspected her and accused Nos.1 to 3 together forced her to abort her pregnancy, beat her and her daughter and attempted to kill them and they used to insult her in the name of caste stating that they cannot tolerate people belonging to Madiga community in their family. Thus, prima facie allegations point out the offences alleged against the petitioners. The recitals of the charge sheet also throw light on the offences that fall under SC and ST Act.

7. Though the learned counsel for the petitioners has relied upon the decision in Crl.P. No.3799 of 2021, in the said case only the offence under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC and ST Act were levelled apart from 504 IPC. Thus, in the said case, it was held that when the offence has not taken place in public view, the essential ingredients of Section 3(1)(r), 3(2)(