Soni Satti
The Supreme Court while hearing a plea where the petitioner was the only accused tried under Section 376(1) of the IPC and Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for committing rape on the victim girl restated,
“Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act will not be attracted automatically because the victim belongs to such and such category. You have to establish that the ingredients of 3(2)(v) are made out”,
The trial court convicted the accused oF crimes, and sentenced him to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs.1,000/- u, in a judgment dated 19.02.2013. Concurrently, the convict was sentenced to life in prison and a fine of Rs.1,000/- for an offence punishable under Section 3(2)(v) of the Act. The Andhra Pradesh High Court rejected the appeal in August 2019, upholding the verdict.
A bench of Justices D. Y. Chandrachud and M. R. Shah cited a 2019 Supreme Court judgment by a bench led by Justice R. Banumathi, in which the court reduced a murder convict’s life imprisonment to the sentence already served, noting that,
“There is no evidence to show that the offence was committed solely because the victim was a member of the Scheduled Caste and hence, the conviction of the appellant-accused under Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act is not sustainable’’
Nobody will ask (if the offence was committed against the victim on the ground that they are a member of an SC or an ST), it must be alleged in the FIR that the victim belonged to so-and-so and that is why the rape was committed. Only then is 3(2)(v) to be attracted. It will not be attracted automatically because the victim belongs to so-and-so”, concurred Justice Shah.