The Calcutta High Court has set aside a Special Court’s acceptance of a ‘Nil/No clue’ police report in an SC/ST Act case over alleged casteist Facebook posts, holding that ‘public view’ extends to the digital domain and ordering further investigation by specialised cyber-forensic personnel under DCP supervision.
A Bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar has set aside the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s refusal of regular bail to Kanha @ Kanhaiya Singh in a POCSO and SC/ST Act case, holding that courts must not impose a judge’s views on morality in bail matters, and directing his release on bail after over a year in custody, subject to his custody in a connected conviction appeal.
The Bombay High Court at Nagpur has dismissed Nikhil Madhukar Thepale’s appeal against refusal of anticipatory bail in a case under the BNS, the IT Act and the SC/ST Act, holding that circulation of objectionable videos and photographs of the complainant on WhatsApp is prima facie within public view and that the bar under Section 18 of the SC/ST Act applies, and noting that he has remained absconding. The allegations are untested.
The Delhi High Court denied anticipatory bail to social-media commentator Ajeet Bharti in an SC/ST Atrocities Act case over a video allegedly containing caste-based slurs aimed at MP Chandrashekhar Azad, holding that a prima facie case of caste-based humiliation is made out and that the statutory bar on anticipatory bail under the Act applies. New […]
The Supreme Court has dismissed a PIL challenging the 2018 amendment to the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which inserted Section 18A to restore the bar on anticipatory bail and dispense with a preliminary enquiry before FIR and prior approval for arrest. The Court held that the amendment had already been upheld in Prithvi Raj Chauhan (2020), with sufficient safeguards, and that isolated instances of abuse are no ground to revisit a law approved by a three-judge Bench, abuse being addressable case by case.
Rejecting anticipatory bail to a Railway Protection Force officer accused in a custodial death, the Allahabad High Court observed that “the plague of custodial death does not show any sign of abating,” and held that in such cases the burden of proof should ordinarily lie on the police personnel to rebut the allegations against them. […]
YouTuber Ajeet Bharti has moved the Delhi High Court for anticipatory bail in an SC/ST Act case after a trial court refused relief, holding his remarks prima facie invoked caste hierarchy. New Delhi: YouTuber and commentator Ajeet Bharti has approached the Delhi High Court seeking anticipatory bail in the case registered against him under the […]
