Factual Background 

In the case of Ramesh Chandra Vaishya v. State of Uttar Pradesh, The complainant and the appellant got into a fight over water drainage, and the appellant is accused of verbally and physically abusing the complainant. According to the Penal Code and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989, an FIR was filed against the appellant. The initial FIR, however, included no indication of the location or the people present when the appellant allegedly hurled caste-related insults. According to the second FIR, the incident may have happened in the appellant’s home.

Analysis of Court decree 

The Divisional bench of Justice S. Ravindra Bhat and Justice Dipankar Datta of the Supreme Court When discussing a case involving the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, it was noted that “If one calls another an idiot (bewaqoof), a fool (murkh), or a thief (chor) in any place within public view, this would constitute an act intended to insult or humiliate by use of abusive or offensive language. Even if the same were to be spoken generally about someone who just so happened to belong to a Scheduled Caste or Tribe, section 3(1)(x) might not be invoked unless the comments were laced with casteist sentiments.

The Court pointed out that The SC/ST Act’s Section 18 prohibits the court from using its Section 438, Cr.PC authority. And given that the SC/ST Act supersedes all other laws, it is advisable that before an accused person is put on trial for an alleged offence under section 3(1)(x), the utterances he made in any location where the public could see them are detailed, if not in the fact-finding report, which is not required to be an exhaustive record of all facts and events, then at least in the charge-sheet, which is prepared based either on statements of an eye witness.

In order to prove its case against the appellant, the prosecution relied on the testimony of three witnesses, but the court pointed out that these three witnesses were none other than the complainant, his wife, and their kid. The first F.I.R. and the charge sheet make no mention of a witness being present at the scene of the crime. Because the appellant’s statements, if any, were made elsewhere than “in any place within public view,” they did not meet the requirements of section 3(1)(x) of the SC/ST Act. Regarding the complaint that the complainant had been subjected to insulting remarks about his caste, the court observed that this did not advance the complainant’s case enough to make it fall under the purview of section 3(1)(x) of the SC/ST Act.