New Delhi : Even as the debate rages on the misuse of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the government’s own National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows in its 2017 report a sharp decline in convictions in such cases for want of evidence.
The conviction ate was 38% in 2010 while it fell to just 16% in 2016 for crimes against the Scheduled Castes and from 26% in 2010 to 8% for Scheduled Tribes in 2016. In contrast, the number of total cases registered every year has been going up, hitting 45,286 in 2016 as against 40,481 in 2010 and peaking at 47,027 in 2015.
The total pending cases of atrocities against SCs and STs have also gone up from 31,931 in 2010 to 41,191 in 2016, the NCRB report shows. Cases pending trial at the end of 2016 rose to 91% from 78% in 2010 in case of Dalits while it rose from 84% to 90% in case of the tribals. The report shows that the crimes against Dalits have gone up with Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan heading the table of the states with the most of the instances.
According to Census 2011, the population of SCs and STs stood at 16.6% and 8.6% respectively.
The final reports submitted by the police in 2015 revealed that as many as 5,347 cases were “false,”, 2150 cases “to be true but with insufficient evidence” and 869 cases to be “mistake of facts.”
The NCRB report, which has been extensively quoted in the Supreme Court’s March 20 judgment, shows that the charge-sheets were filed in 78.3% cases and the conviction rate was 25.8%. The report gives a dismal picture of only 659 cases of atrocities against the SCs ended in conviction as against 42% cases ending in conviction in case of the STs.