Court raps man for misusing SC/ST Act

Complainant SS Khemwal,a former senior officer in the Union Petroleum Ministry,had alleged that Ravinder Singh and his two brothers attempted to grab his land and tortured him in September 2007. Khemwal also indicted the Tehsildar and ex-Tehsildars of Narela for failing to perform their public duties. He invoked several provisions of the IPC,Delhi Land Reforms Act and the SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

However,the court observed that the complainant was neither an owner nor transferee of the land. In fact,Singh had purchased the land in 2005. Khemwal contended that his father started cultivating it in 1990,alongwith the adjoining land which belonged to them,and since then owners of the land did not take care of it.

The court called the complainant and his father “encroachers” who have no right over the land. “The provisions of this Special Legislation (SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act,1989) cannot be invoked as a device to create and regularise a right where none exists,” the court said.

The court also dismissed the allegations against public functionaries saying,“Any attempt by a person to approach public officers under the threat of prosecution is nothing short of criminal intimidation and cannot be permitted.”

In a verdict in April,the same judge had made similar observations on the Act. The court had noted that the complainant had changed her statement before the police and invoked the SC/ST Act against the relatives of her landlord after talking to her lawyer.