Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: August 5, 2022 at 19:47 IST
According to the Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow Bench decision, victims under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act are only entitled for compensation after the conviction of the accused , not after filing a FIR or submitting a charge sheet to the court.
The Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary (Home), and Additional Chief Secretary (social welfare department) of the State Government must get a copy of the order from the High Court in order to comply with it.
Concerned about abuse of the SC/ST Act, Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh and a Single Judge Bench made the following observation on July 26. The Court stated that:
“The Court is noticing this trend every day in large number of cases that the complainant enters into compromise with the accused for quashing of the proceedings after receiving compensation from the state government.”
The High Court added that the State (government) is free to recover the compensation from the alleged victim in cases where the complainant and the accused entered into a compromise for the quashing of the proceedings and this court exercises its authority under Section 482 CrPC to quail the proceedings against the accused.
The petitioners in this case, Israr Ahmad and others, were named in the FIR filed by the complainant, who belongs to the schedule caste community, at Naseerabad police station in the Rae Bareli district of Uttar Pradesh in 2019.
On February 2, 2019, the investigating officer submitted the charge sheet to the SC/ST Act special judge’s court in Rae Bareli.
The victim had also received compensation from the state government in the amount of 75,000. However, after the charge sheet was filed and during the trial court hearings in the Rae Bareli district, the victim and the accused reached an agreement for the quashing of the case.