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The Apex Court in its verdict on March 20, 2018, had diluted the law’s provisions and had said public servants cannot be arrested immediately after a complaint is filed against them under the law. After severe retaliation and protest against the court’s order, the Centre moved court to seek a review of the order, and the Parliament passed an amendment bill in August, 2018 to reverse the verdict. The amendments said no preliminary inquiry will be needed to file a criminal case and an arrest under this law would not be subject to any approval.
In the petition against amendment Attorney General KK Venugopal, on behalf of the Centre, said the verdict in March 2018 was “problematic” and should be reviewed by the court. However, on the other hand Senior advocate Vikas Singh, who appeared for the parties supporting the March verdict, said the Centre’s review petition had become infructuous as the Parliament had already passed the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018, to reverse the judgment. A stay has been sought on the amendment act till the Supreme Court gives a verdict on Centre’s review plea.
The Supreme Court bench in its verdict said that if any wrong has been done in the judgement, then it can be corrected through the review petition. In January this year the Supreme Court had refused to stay the implementation of the amendment Act but said it will hear the petitions challenging the amendments. The petitions claim that the LS and the RS had arbitrarily decided to amend the law and restored the earlier provisions in a manner wherein an innocent person cannot avail the right to anticipatory bail. Further, one of the petitions claimed that the structure of the Act violates “basic principles of liberty and accountability” after the amendments.
In its recent development in the petition the Supreme Court on 1st May, 2019 reserved its order on a batch of petitions challenging the amendments to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. A divisional bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Uday Umesh Lalit has been hearing the petitions since February 19. The bench in its order had remarked that “Laws in the country should be uniform and cannot be for general category or SC/ST category”.
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