Above: AG K K Venugopal/Photo by Anil Shakya

In the application by Dr Shubhash Kashinath Mahajan before the Supreme Court bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Uday Umesh Lalit, regarding the court’s earlier order on restriction of arrest under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 (SC/ST Act), Attorney General K K Venugopal on Thursday (May 3) suggested that the case be put up before a larger bench.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising had submitted two interlocutory applications, appearing on behalf of the original applicant. One of the applications is a review petition and another for filing false affidavit.

Justice A K Goel rejected plea of origin FIR filer to take cognizance on perjury issue.

Talking about the case per se, Venugopal brought up direction 4 of this court, in which permission from the deputy superintendent of police is needed before the arrest and arrest made once he is satisfied.

To that Justice Goel said: “Yes, because earlier he was bound to arrest without going into any investigation.”

Explaining further, Justice Lalit said: “The core of the judgment is only to stop the readily done arrests (just) on the basis of complaints. There is no embargo on the regular bail of the accused such as under acts like POTA etc. Hence this shows intention of legislature.”

While accepting this, Venugopal then suggested that further discussions could be before a larger bench.

The court has not commented on that, but has listed the matter for May 16.

—India Legal Bureau