Overcoming Hurdles: Challenges in Implementing the SC/ST Act

The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 – commonly known as the SC/ST Act or the PoA Act – is one of India’s most detailed and forceful pieces of social justice legislation. It criminalises a wide range of caste-based offences, mandates special courts for speedy trials, and prescribes relief and rehabilitation for victims. Yet, more than three decades after its enactment, the Act’s record on the ground tells a troubling story. Despite over 67,000 cases being recorded in 2022 alone, conviction rates remain dismally low and atrocities continue to rise. The gap between what the law says and what actually happens is not incidental – it reflects deep, systemic problems that need to be understood clearly.

The first barrier: Getting the FIR registered
Investigation failures: Where cases fall apart
The witness protection vacuum
Conviction rates: The numbers that expose the system
Court delays and special courts that are not so special
Judicial interpretation: Narrowing the Act’s scope
Awareness gaps and institutional accountability
What genuine reform requires

The first barrier: Getting the FIR registered

For a victim of a caste-based atrocity, the journey to justice begins at the police station – and very often, it ends there too. The Act is unambiguous: an FIR must be registered immediately when a complaint is made under its provisions. In practice, however, police personnel have consistently shown an unwillingness to register offences under the Act. This resistance comes from two sources: ignorance of the law’s specific provisions, and caste bias. Upper-caste police officers are often reluctant to file cases against members of their own or affiliated communities, especially given that most offences under the Act are non-bailable and carry a minimum sentence of six months to five years.

The workaround used routinely is to register cases under general provisions of what was formerly the Indian Penal Code, rather than under the SC/ST Act’s specific sections. This dilutes the legal protection available to victims significantly. Cases continue to be registered under weaker provisions of the IPC rather than the stronger provisions of the SC/ST Act, and when police do file, they sometimes deliberately cite incorrect sections, stripping victims of the enhanced remedies the Act provides. There is also institutional pressure on officers to keep reported crime rates low in their jurisdictions, which further incentivises the non-registration of cases.

The Act itself, under Section 4, makes it a punishable offence for a public servant to wilfully neglect duties under the Act. Yet this provision is almost never invoked, reflecting the broader failure of accountability within enforcement agencies.

Investigation failures: Where cases fall apart

When an FIR does get registered, the next critical step is investigation – and this is where many cases collapse before they ever reach a courtroom. The Act and its Rules require that investigations be conducted by an officer of not less than the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP). This requirement is frequently violated – many cases are delayed at the FIR stage, evidence is not collected properly, and procedural mistakes weaken the prosecution before it even gets to court.

A particularly critical failure is the omission of the caste angle from the investigation. Under the Act, an offence is only cognisable if it is committed on the basis of the victim’s SC/ST identity. Courts have consistently held that this caste-based motivation must be established on record. While prosecuting cases under the Act, courts have held that the caste bias must be proved – but when investigating officers fail to document this element in the FIR or the chargesheet, the case effectively collapses at the evidentiary stage. Studies show that officers in many jurisdictions lack the training to handle atrocity cases in a manner that satisfies this legal requirement.

The witness protection vacuum

Perhaps no single issue does more damage to prosecution outcomes under the SC/ST Act than the near-total absence of meaningful witness protection. Victims and witnesses continue to face immense pressure, threats, and social boycotts to withdraw their cases, and the economic dependence of victims on perpetrators – particularly in rural areas – creates additional vulnerabilities that current protection mechanisms fail to address.

India introduced a Witness Protection Scheme in 2018, but its implementation across states has been patchy and largely ineffective for SC/ST cases. In most rural settings, the accused and the victim share the same village, the same economic ecosystem, and sometimes even the same employer. A victim who files a case under the Act risks agricultural wage loss, social ostracism, and in some cases, physical violence. The lapse between case registration and trial means that witnesses who are poor and face intimidation in the interim often turn hostile, making the case too weak for a conviction. The prolonged wait also causes many complainants to simply lose interest in pursuing the matter.

Conviction rates: The numbers that expose the system

The statistics on conviction under the SC/ST Act are stark. The conviction rate under the Act declined from 39.2% in 2020 to 32.4% in 2022, indicating a troubling downward trend in judicial outcomes. At the state level, the picture is even grimmer. Karnataka recorded a conviction rate of just 5% in 2018. Some special courts – which were specifically created to ensure speedier justice – have recorded zero convictions in the cases they disposed of.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh publicly acknowledged this failure at a 2009 conference of State Welfare Ministers, calling it “shocking” that the conviction rate for SC/ST atrocity cases was less than 30%, against the average of 42% for all cognisable offences under the IPC. Over fifteen years later, the problem has not been resolved. The Supreme Court itself noted that many acquittals result from improper investigation and prosecution, leading to insufficient evidence – not from the cases being inherently false.

Court delays and special courts that are not so special

The SC/ST Act mandates that trials be completed within two months of the FIR being registered. This provision exists only on paper. The pendency of cases in courts has grown every year – from 174,931 in 2018 to 193,149 in 2019 to 223,017 in 2020. By the end of 2021, the pendency rate in SC cases stood at 96.1%, and at 95.4% for ST cases. At least one case has been pending in court since 1992.

The Act envisages a network of exclusive special courts in every district to handle these cases. Only 194 out of 498 districts across 14 states have established such special courts, and Uttar Pradesh – which reports the highest number of SC atrocity cases in the country – has not even identified atrocity-prone areas, let alone set up dedicated courts. In many states, special court judges simultaneously hold charge of other courts, meaning SC/ST cases are not actually receiving dedicated attention.

Judicial interpretation: Narrowing the Act’s scope

Beyond systemic failures in policing and administration, courts have at times narrowed the scope of the Act through interpretation. Despite a stringent law, courts have consistently narrowed the scope of the Act and diluted it on various grounds. In several judgements, High Courts have held that for an offence to attract the Act’s provisions, the crime must be shown to have been motivated specifically by the victim’s caste identity. This standard, while legally sound in principle, has created a practical barrier: securing a conviction requires evidence not just of the act, but of the intent behind it – evidence that is often difficult to obtain given the state of investigations.

The 2018 Supreme Court judgment in Dr. Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra further complicated matters by introducing requirements of preliminary inquiry and prior sanction before arrest in SC/ST cases – provisions that were subsequently nullified by a parliamentary amendment, but which had already caused significant confusion among enforcement agencies during the intervening period.

Awareness gaps and institutional accountability

Many SC/ST individuals, especially in remote areas, are unaware of their rights under the Act, including their entitlement to immediate relief, legal aid, and victim compensation. This awareness gap affects both the reporting of atrocities and the ability of victims to navigate the legal system once a case is filed.

On the institutional side, the Act requires State and District Vigilance and Monitoring Committees to meet regularly to review implementation. In most states, these committees meet infrequently or not at all. The data published by the NCRB in its annual Crime in India reports tells the story of choreographed performances, impotent state mechanisms, and a system that consistently protects the perpetrator over the victim. The 2015 Amendment to the Act expanded the list of defined offences and strengthened victim rights under Section 15A, but without corresponding accountability for enforcement agencies, these additions remain more aspirational than operational.

What genuine reform requires

Addressing the implementation failures of the SC/ST Act requires changes at multiple levels simultaneously. At the policing level, mandatory sensitisation training on caste-based crimes, strict accountability for non-registration of FIRs, and dedicated SC/ST cells in every district are minimum requirements. At the judicial level, filling the gap in special court infrastructure, appointing exclusive prosecutors as mandated by the Act’s Rules, and setting enforceable timelines for disposal of cases are essential steps. Witness and victim protection must be operationalised through state-funded support mechanisms – not just on paper, but with funded programmes and case-by-case oversight.

Most critically, the monitoring architecture that the Act already envisions – vigilance committees, annual reports under Section 21(4), state-level reviews – needs to actually function. Awareness campaigns to educate communities about SC/ST rights and the legal protections available under the Act must accompany enforcement reforms, because a victim who does not know their rights cannot exercise them. The legislative intent behind the SC/ST Act is clear and well-designed. What it needs is not more amendments, but the institutional will to implement what is already on the books.

What do you think? Given that the SC/ST Act already provides for special courts, exclusive prosecutors, and mandatory FIR registration, why do you think these provisions continue to be ignored in practice – and what would it take to make enforcement agencies genuinely accountable? If conviction rates under the Act are low largely because of poor investigation and witness intimidation rather than false cases, how should the legal system respond to ensure that acquittal does not become a shield for impunity?

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Table of Contents

The first barrier: Getting the FIR registered 🔗

Investigation failures: Where cases fall apart 🔗

The witness protection vacuum 🔗

Conviction rates: The numbers that expose the system 🔗

Court delays and special courts that are not so special 🔗

Judicial interpretation: Narrowing the Act’s scope 🔗

Awareness gaps and institutional accountability 🔗

What genuine reform requires 🔗