The Supreme Court on Friday has referred to its three-judge bench, the Centre's plea, seeking review of the March 20, 2018 verdict which had virtually diluted provisions of arrest under the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) Act. "Place the matter before three-judge bench next week," said a bench of justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit. The top court had on May 1 reserved the judgement on the Centre's review plea while observing that laws in the country should be caste-neutral and uniform. Earlier, the Centre had contended that the March 2018 verdict by the Supreme Court was a 'problematic' verdict. It hoped that the verdict would be reviewed. 

March 2018 Supreme Court's verdict 

In 2018, the Supreme Court introduced safeguards to prevent the misuse of the SC/ST Act against officers who deal with the complaints under the Act in their official capacity. Along with this, the court had also given a purposive interpretation to Section 18 of the Act that prevents granting of anticipatory bail in complaints under the Act. This had led to a massive outcry and protests by different SC/ST organisations across the country. The Centre had filed a review petition against the judgment.

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SC/ST Act Controversy 

While the Centre had opposed the verdict, some of the parties were supporting it. They claimed that the Centre's review was "infructuous" as Parliament had already passed the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 to neutralize the effects of the judgement. They sought Amendment Act to stay till the apex court gives the verdict on the review plea of Centre. On the other hand, the apex court had refused to stay the amendments to the SC/ST Act that restored the no anticipatory bail provision. In March last year, the apex court had taken note of the rampant misuse of the stringent SC/ST Act against government servants and private individuals and said there would be no immediate arrest on any complaint filed under the law. The top court had said that if any wrong has been done in the judgement, then it can always be corrected in the review petition. 

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Further, on August 9 last year, the Parliament had passed a bill to overturn the apex court order relating to certain safeguards against arrest under the SC and ST law. The top court had said that on "several occasions", innocent citizens were being termed as accused and public servants deterred from performing their duties, which was never the intention of the legislature while enacting the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Meanwhile, the apex court declared that there is no absolute bar against grant of anticipatory bail in cases under the Atrocities Act, if no prima facie case is made out or where the complaint is found to be prima facie mala fide. It had said that in view of the acknowledged abuse of law of arrest in cases under the Atrocities Act, arrest of a public servant can only be upon approval of the appointing authority and of a non-public servant after approval by the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP). 

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