Chennai:
Dalits
in the state have been forced to approach the courts to register First
Information Reports (FIRs) pertaining to cases linked to Scheduled caste
and Scheduled Tribes Prevention Atrocities Act.
As
per the Act, police has to conduct the investigation and file charge
sheet in the Special Court or the Exclusive Special Court within a
period of sixty days, and to explain the delay if any, in writing. This
is not under practice, as per information availed under Right to
Information Act.
As
per the information gathered from RTI, Tamil Nadu Police has registered
441 First Information Reports (FIRs) pertaining to cases linked to
Scheduled caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention Atrocities Act after the
intervention of courts.
As
per information availed from RTI by activist Aju Arvind, the 441 cases
were registered as per the direction of Madras High Court under Section
156 (3) during the period 2011-16 with maximum 95 cases being registered
in 2013.
Interestingly,
the figures from 2011-16 comes in the wake of state police denying any
FIRs being registered on the direction of court under Section 156 (3)
during a meeting with National Commission for Scheduled Castes chairman
Dr P L Punia on July 2015.
Arvind,
who has combined all the RTIs pertaining to Scheduled Caste and
Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act in a book titled
‘Othukapatavargalin Vallakugalam Marakkapadum Nithiyum’ in Tamil says
that FIRs have been registered by police after regular intervention by
the courts. He said in 2011, a total of 43 FIRs were registered after
orders from the court. This continued in 2012 (89 FIRs), 2013 (95 FIRs),
2014 (82 FIRs), 2015 (79 FIRs) and 2016 (53 FIRs).
Interestingly,
the RTIs also revealed that from 2011 to 2016, the state police has
dropped 2,719 cases under the SC and ST Prevention of Atrocities Act
under ‘Mistake of Fact or Law’. These include four muder cases and five
rape cases.
Under
the RTI, it was found out that additional director general of police,
Social Justice and Human Rights have listed 28 districts as atrocity
prone against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Similarly, it has
listed 278 villages as atrocity prone villages.
As
per the Act, there should be Exclusive Special Courts in all these
districts but the state has only six Exclusive Special Courts. Of these
two were constructed after a Madras High Court oder following a writ
petition filed by Paadam Narayanan. In 2015, Madras High court ordered
to build Exclusive Special Court in all the atrocity prone districts but
it has yet to be constructed.
The book will be released on Friday by former Madras High Court judge Hari Paranthaman.
Factfile:
Cases registered under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act:
Year: 2014
No of cases: 1636
Year: 2015
No of cases: 1822
Year: 2016
No of cases: 1476
Total pending cases
Year: 2016
Under Investigation: 740
Trial: 4551
Conviction rate Under the Act: 5.8pc
Acquittal: 94.2pc
Special courts:
Tamil Nadu
Atrocity prone districts: 28
Excusive Special Courts: six
Madhya Pradesh:
Districts: 50
Exclusive special Courts: 43
Uttar Pradesh:
Districts: 71
Exclusive special courts: 40
Andhra and Telengana (before partition)
Districts: 23
Exclusive special courts: 23
Rajasthan:
Districts: 33
Exclusive special courts: 25
Gujarat:
Districts: 26
Exclusive special courts: 19
Top four districts with pending cases under the act:
Madurai: 761
Tirunelveli: 560
Sivaganga: 414
Virudhnagar: 331
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