Insulting an individual from the SC/ST community without caste-based context is not an offence under the SC/ST Act

New Delhi— The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that insulting or humiliating a person belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) community without invoking his or her caste, tribe or the concept of untouchability does not constitute an offence under the stringent provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

The verdict was delivered by a bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra while granting anticipatory bail to Shajan Skaria, editor of an online Malayalam news channel. Skaria was booked under the SC/ST Act for calling CPM MLA PV Sreenijan, who belongs to the SC community, a “mafia don”. Both the trial court and the Kerala High Court had earlier denied him pre-arrest bail.

The court observed: “Not every deliberate insult or intimidation of a member of an SC/ST community will result in a feeling of humiliation on the basis of caste.”

The court further held that there was no prima facie evidence to suggest that Skaria, by posting the video on YouTube, intended to promote enmity, hatred or ill-will against the SC/ST community in general. “The video has nothing to do with members of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes in general. Its target was only the complainant (Sreenijan),” the court observed.

In the 70-page judgment by Justice Pardiwala, the court emphasised that the SC/ST Act is intended to address insults or intimidation arising out of practices like untouchability or to reinforce historically entrenched ideas of caste superiority. “Only in those cases where the intentional insult or intimidation occurs, either because of the prevalent practice of untouchability or to reinforce historically entrenched ideas such as the superiority of the ‘upper castes’ over the ‘lower castes/untouchables’, the concepts of ‘purity’ and ‘defilement’, etc., can it be said to amount to insult or intimidation of the kind contemplated by the 1989 Act,” the judgment explained.

The court clarified that the intention to humiliate must be seen in a broader context and stated, “It is not the simple insult or intimidation amounting to ‘humiliation’ which is punishable under the 1989 Act.” With specific reference to the remark about the ‘mafia boss’, the court suggested that at most Skaria could be held prima facie liable for defamation under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).