Gujarat HC notes ‘gross abuse’ of the Atrocity Act, dismisses charges

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday dismissed allegations of atrocity, stating that the case represented a severe misuse of the provisions of the Atrocities Act.

The bench, presided over by Justice D A Joshi, while quashing the FIR filed by a lawyer against his neighbor, noted, “…the complainant, being a member of the Scheduled Caste, possesses a highly potent weapon in the form of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. There cannot be a better case than the one at hand of gross abuse of the provisions of the Atrocities Act.”

The case dates back to 2019 when the complainant filed an FIR with Vastrapur Police alleging that he was beaten and subjected to caste-based insults during an argument with his neighbor.

Subsequently, the accused, Samir Patel, and his family moved to the High Court seeking dismissal of the FIR, arguing that it did not mention any caste-based abuses, thereby asserting that the invocation of the Atrocities Act was a misuse of the legal process.

After hearing the case, Justice D A Joshi dismissed the charges under the Atrocities Act and allowed criminal proceedings based on the complaint to continue. DeshGujarat