Allahabad High Court: mere caste name without intent not SC/ST Act offence

The Allahabad High Court has ruled that calling someone by a caste name such as 'Chamar' does not attract the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, unless the words were used with the intention to humiliate the victim on caste grounds. Justice Santosh Rai set aside a trial court order summoning two men under Section 319 CrPC after the victim alleged they abused her using that word. The court said the victim's earlier statements under Sections 161 and 164 CrPC did not attribute any specific casteist remark to the appellants.

The Supreme Court in a separate case quashed proceedings under the same Act against a school manager, holding that caste abuses allegedly uttered inside an enclosed room with no public access do not meet the requirement of being 'within public view'. A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta said the FIR and witness statements did not establish that any member of the public was present when the alleged utterances were made. The court clarified that IPC offences in the same case may continue.