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Delhi High Court ruled that a caste-based insult under Section 3(1)(x), SC/ST Act must occur in a place within public view. Finding this essential ingredient absent, it set aside the charge and remanded the case for consideration under the IPC.
“From the allegations made in the complaint, the prosecution has not proved that the accused is guilty of an offence under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989”
“In an acquittal appeal if other view is possible, then also, the appellate court cannot merely substitute its view by reversing the acquittal into conviction, unless the findings of the trial Court are perverse, palpably wrong, manifestly erroneous or demonstrably unsustainable.”
The Supreme Court observed that it is desirable that before an accused is subjected to a trial for alleged commission of offence under section 3(1)(x), the utterances made by him in any place within public view are outlined, if not in the F.I.R., but at least in the charge-sheet so as to enable the court to ascertain whether the charge sheet makes out a case of an offence.