-PTI New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Friday overturned the acquittal of 20 people in the 2010 Mirchpur Dalit killing case while observing that instances of atrocities against Scheduled Castes had not abated even after 71 years of Independence. The court upheld the conviction of 13 people by a trial court and enhanced the punishment of some of the convicts. A 60-year-old Dalit and his physically challenged daughter were burnt alive by members...

-Scroll.in Untouchability was outlawed in 1950, but discrimination and segregation of the scheduled caste remains pervasive. Musahars, a Scheduled Caste that sections of Hindu society deem untouchable, are still being denied government entitlements such as state pensions and housing. The discrimination is blatant when it comes to accessing government healthcare in Badagaon administrative block of Varanasi district in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous province. The scourge of discrimination is so pervasive that...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has granted anticipatory bail to four people accused under the SC and ST (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act two months after ruling against the act's provisions that mandate automatic arrests and prohibit anticipatory bail. Maharashtra-based gender rights activist Trupti Desai, her husband and two others associated with her NGO had been accused of abusing a Dalit by his caste and robbing him in July last year. The...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the country would not be a "civilised society" if the "Damocles sword of arrest" hangs on a citizen constantly, as it prima facie defended its judgment ruling out immediate and mandatory arrest of a person charged under the SC-ST (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act. A bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit, which briefly heard the Centre's petition seeking a recall of...

-The Hindu Supreme Court verdict on the Act could increase the vulnerability of victims of atrocities, says ex-official GUNTUR (Andhra Pradesh): The Central government must bring an ordinance to remove the conditions imposed in the recent Supreme Court judgment in the implementation of the Prevention Of Atrocities (SC, ST) Act, 1989 and remove all general observations made about it, said P.S. Krishnan, former Union Secretary, Ministry of Welfare, and member, National Monitoring...