SC issues notice to ED on Kejriwal’s plea against arrest, next hearing on April 29
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta issued notice to the ED seeking its response on Kejriwal's plea by April 24.
The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to stay the SC/ST(Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 that rules out any provision for anticipatory bail for a person accused of atrocities against Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes.
The top court said that the petitions against the amendment and review pleas against its March 20 judgement should be heard together.
The Supreme Court had on March 20 taken note of the rampant misuse of the stringent SC/ST Act against government servants and held that there shall be no immediate arrest on any complaint filed under the law.
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It had passed a slew of directions and said a public servant can be arrested in cases lodged under the SC/ST Act only after prior approval by the competent authority.
However, the Parliament on August 9 passed a bill to overturn the apex court order concerning certain safeguards against arrest under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe law. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha. It had got the nod of the Lok Sabha on August 6.
The bill rules out any provision for anticipatory bail for a person accused of atrocities against SC/STs, notwithstanding any court order. It provides that no preliminary inquiry will be required for registering a criminal case and an arrest under this law would not be subject to any approval.
The apex court had in September last year said that the new amendments to the SC/ST law passed by Parliament could not be stayed as it had become a law, and sought the Centre’s response on a batch of pleas challenging the fresh provisions.
The court was hearing pleas which alleged that both Houses of Parliament had “arbitrarily” decided to amend the law and restored previous provisions in such a manner so that an innocent cannot avail the right of anticipatory bail.
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