BJP spreading rumour BSP diluted SC/ST Act, says Mayawati

In a statement, Mayawati on Thursday alleged that the BJP and the media only presented partial information, which is meant to confuse people. “There is misleading news in the media… that the BSP government itself gave orders on May 20, 2007 and October 29, 2007 to stop the misuse of the Act… then why is it (BSP) opposing the Supreme Court’s March 20, 2018 order. It is also being said that when both the Supreme Court order and the BSP order were similar, then why this double standard?” Mayawati said.

“The reality is that during our regime, Opposition parties used to allege that under the garb of the Act, non-Dalits used to face largescale harassment… While the allegations were baseless, we still took cognizance of the matter and on May 20, 2007 we passed an order asking police officers to conduct immediate probes to find out the truth into complaints lodged under the Act and only then register complaints,” she added.

Mayawati said that such an order was issued as “influential persons” sometimes use members of SC and ST communities as their “pawns to lodge false cases against their rivals”.

“However, within a few months (in 2007), we found that the order was being misused and was causing problems in lodging cases under the Act. Therefore, we withdrew the earlier order and issued a fresh one on October 29, directing that cases should be registered as per the original provisions of the Act. We also mentioned that if any false case is found registered under the Act and it was corroborated during the investigation, then a case should be registered against the complainant,” she added.

Mayawati denied that the order issued by her government and the SC on March 20 — banning automatic arrests and registration of criminal cases under the SC/ST Act — were similar. She claimed that while the SC directive is to seek permission from the appointing authority before registering a case against a government official and also making provision for anticipatory bail, both directives did not find a place in her 2007 orders.

The statement comes days after Dalits staged protests across the country against what they called dilution of the Act, leading to the death of 10 people, including two in Uttar Pradesh.