The party expresses concern over rising atrocities against SCs/STs across the country
NEW DELHI – In the wake of rising atrocities on Dalits and the alleged judicial bias, the Congress has urged the Chief Justice of India to take serious and strict note of certain judgements pronounced across the country by different judges which smack of caste discrimination.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here on Thursday, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Chairman of the SC Department at the AICC, noted that some judges have passed certain judgements which reflect their caste bias.
Besides demanding strict action against such judges, Gautam suggested issuing strict guidelines for the judiciary, as they derive their powers from the country’s Constitution.
Quoting a few judgements, he said that some years ago, a judge of the Chhattisgarh High Court had acquitted the rape accused because upper caste men cannot rape an SC or ST woman.
In the infamous Bhanwari Devi gang-rape case in Rajasthan in 1992, he said, a similar reasoning was used to acquit the accused. “Nothing has changed in all these years”, he remarked.
In another similar judgement passed recently in Odisha, Gautam disclosed that two Dalit youths protesting against illegal mining were jailed and when one of them was granted bail by the high court, a condition was imposed that he would do cleaning work at the police station.
The Congress leader noted that this mindset of judges was a dangerous trend with divisive implications.
Quoting the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, he said, there was a consistent increase in the crimes against the SCs and the STs in the country.
Calling for strengthening the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, he said, these have been rendered powerless as the government has not appointed all the members. He disclosed that out of over six lakh complaints received regarding atrocities against SCs and STs, only about 7,500 were heard by these commissions. “If you do not want these commissions to function, better scrap them”, he said.
Gautam also questioned the silence of the RSS and its affiliated organisations on the issue of atrocities against Dalits and tribals. He pointed out that on the one hand, they claim to be working for the unity of Hindus, but on the other hand, they don’t even consider Dalits and tribals to be Hindus.
