Chennai: Activists are crying foul over the extremely low number of conviction in cases registered under the Scheduled Caste / Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 with a mere four per cent of cases ending in conviction in the state.
Out of 932 cases that were registered under the SC/ST atrocity act till July this year, only 35 cases ended in the conviction and 511 cases resulted in acquittal, according to the data obtained from the Social Justice and Human Rights wing of the police through RTI by V. Vikash Christyraj. In 2015, as many as 1,822 cases were registered in the act with 876 cases ending in acquittal and 53 in conviction.
The maximum numbers of atrocity cases were registered in the southern districts with Madurai district recording 171 cases followed by Tirunelveli district (64) till July this year. Last year, Madurai alone registered 304 cases with Tirunelveli (172) and Villupuram (100) behind. Significantly, as many as 4,585 cases were pending in the courts till July 2016.
“We find that the conviction rate is shockingly low over the years. Justice, compensation and rehabilitation eludes victims of atrocities in this State supposedly known for social justice,” says A. Narayanan, director, Change India, a centre for advocacy and research.
He pointed out that the Madras High Court disposed of the public interest petition on June 10, 2015 with a direction that the Registrar-General “may obtain requisite information of pendency and disposal position qua the other atrocity-prone Districts and thereafter, make necessary recommendations, if the constitution of the Courts is so required as per those parameters, within three months from today” and the state government should take expeditious steps to establish exclusive special courts in other districts. “But, there has been no progress despite almost one and half years have passed by,” he said.
When asked about the reason for such low conviction rate, he said that various reasons including lack of political will, lack of special courts, trained public prosecutors, designated police stations and caste prejudice at all levels condemn the Act to remain largely on paper.
“Poor investigation by the police who take sides with the caste element, leads to the acquittal of the accused. Many a time victims and witness were not given proper protection that results in the acquittal. Unless the Act is implemented properly, the conviction rate will remain high and caste atrocities will continue to happen,” he said.
Last month, the state government notified the stringent and amended SC/ST (POA) rules 2016 that defined 180 types of untouchability and atrocities but attracted immediate opposition from PMK founder Dr S. Ramadoss who felt that certain aspects of the Act might be misused to file forged cases.
