In a recent ruling, the Supreme Court held that abuse alone cannot be deemed an offence under the SC/ST Act, unless the intent was to humiliate a person belonging to the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe group by their caste. The court said that insult, even with knowledge of caste, is not punishable without a casteist intent.
The bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Alok Aradhe said this while quashing criminal proceedings against a man named Keshav Mahto, who was accused of abusing a person from the SC community at an Anganwadi centre in Bihar. The court ruled that neither the FIR nor the chargesheet mentioned that the accused hurled abuses at the complainant based on caste.
The court outlined Section 3(1)(r) of the SC/ST Act, stating that two conditions need to be taken into consideration for convicting a person under the provision. First, the complainant must belong to the SC or ST group. Second, the abuse or insult must be specifically based on the complainant’s caste.
“For an offence to be made out, it must be shown that the accused intentionally insulted or intimidated the victim on the ground that the victim belonged to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe,” the court said.
Keshav Mahto had approached the Supreme Court challenging the Patna High Court’s February 2025 order that refused to interfere with a trial court order that summoned him in the case.
The apex court pointed out that both the trial court and the Patna High Court made an error in allowing criminal proceedings against Keshav Mahto under the SC/ST Act despite there being no allegation of caste-based insult or intimidation in the FIR.
