The Supreme Court has held that before initiating criminal action against a government employee for alleged dereliction of duty under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, an administrative inquiry by a competent authority is mandatory.
The ruling came in an appeal filed by a Superintendent of Police and a Sub-Inspector from Trichy district. They were accused of refusing to register a case on a complaint from a Scheduled Caste person in connection with a land dispute in the Puthanatham area, allegedly stating that the complaint had no basis.
A special court had directed the Puthanatham police to register an FIR against the two officers under the SC/ST Act for dereliction of duty. After the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court dismissed their challenge, the officers approached the Supreme Court.
A bench comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Vinod K. Chandran noted that no such administrative inquiry had been conducted in this matter and that the special court had ordered registration of the FIR directly, which it said was contrary to legal procedure. The bench therefore quashed the FIR registered at the Puthanatham police station and all consequential proceedings.
In a related observation while dealing with a challenge to the validity of the 2018 amendments to the Act, the court said adequate judicial safeguards already exist to prevent misuse, dismissed the petition, and underlined that courts cannot intrude into Parliament’s legislative domain.
