Insulting a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe is not an offence under the 1989 Prevention of Atrocities Act, unless the intention was to humiliate their caste identity, the Supreme Court said on Friday, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra made the remark while granting anticipatory bail to Shajan Skaria, the editor of YouTube channel Marunadan Malayalee, in a case against him for making allegedly derogatory remarks against PV Sreenijin, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) MLA from Kerala’s Kunnathunad.

Skaria had posted a video on the alleged maladministration of a sports hostel operated by Sreenijin in his capacity as the chairman of the District Sports Council.

Sreenijin alleged that Skaria uploaded the video “with the intention to humiliate and ridicule him among the general public with the knowledge that the complainant is a member of the Pulaya community, which is a Scheduled Caste”, The Indian Express reported.

Skaria had moved the Supreme Court after the Kerala High Court in June 2023 upheld an order of a special court in Ernakulam denying him anticipatory bail in the matter.

On Friday, the bench said that the phrase “intent to humiliate” under Section 3(1)(r) of the Act is “inextricably linked to the caste identity of the person who is subjected to intentional insult or intimidation”.

This section pertains to intentional insult or intimidation with the purpose of humiliating a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe within public view.

Not every intentional insult or intimidation of a member of the two groups would result in a “feeling of caste-based humiliation”, the court said, according to Live Law.

It added: “It is only in those cases where the intentional insult or intimidation takes place either due to the prevailing practice of untouchability or to reinforce the historically entrenched ideas like the superiority of the ‘upper castes’ over the ‘lower castes/untouchables’, the notions of ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’, etc. that it could be said to be an insult or intimidation of the type envisaged by the Act, 1989.”

Mere knowledge that the victim is a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe is not sufficient to attract punishment under Section 3(1)(r) of the Act, the bench added.

The court also noted that that there was nothing in the transcript of the video posted by Skaria to indicate prima facie that the claims made were because the complainant belonged to a Scheduled Caste, the court said, Live Law reported.

It seemed that the appellant was at “inimical terms” with the complainant, the court said, adding that the intention appeared to be to defame the complainant but not because of his caste identity.

The bench also said that it was not required to assess the truthfulness of the claims made in the video, adding that the matter only pertained to determining whether an offence under Section 3(1)(r) had been prima facie committed.

It also said that the objective behind the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act was to provide stringent provisions for punishment of offences targeted towards persons belonging to the two groups because of their caste identity.

It added: “It is not the purport of the Act, 1989, that every act of intentional insult or intimidation meted by a person who is not a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe to a person who belongs to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe would attract Section 3(1)(r) of the Act, 1989 merely because it is committed against a person who happens to be a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe.”