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A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court of India praying to strike down the Amendment of 2018 in Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 as being violative of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution. The new Amendment waives off the court-imposed requirements of undertaking a preliminary inquiry and of obtaining approval before arrest and it also restores the ban on the grant of anticipatory bail in the event of offence under Act.
The basic fact upon which the PIL was based was that the the judgment in the case of Dr. Subhash Kashinath Mahajan was rendered ineffective and the Amendment was cleared by Lok Sabha even during the pendency of the review of the case. After the decision of the Subhash case, there was chaos in the nation and thus the review was sought. However, the Bench refused to relent.
The petitioner contended that-
It has been further suggested by the petitioners that being born in an upper caste cannot be a ground to presume the guilt so as to deprive the person of his liberty without giving him the opportunity to be produced before an independent forum and that the power of arrest should be exercised only after following the due procedure and safeguards.
The Court has taken note of the fact that the volume of the complaints under the Act has been increasing alarmingly and 85% of cases resulted in acquittal. In the petition, it has been prayed that there has been violation of the Fundamental Rights and the court should not end up being a spectator. Further, the reliance was placed on the case of Shah Bano, in which the decision was given irrespective of the Personal Law and on the 2009 landmark ruling of Apex Court wherein, all the laws were declared open to Judicial Review if they violate the Constitutional provisions.
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