Flyover Is “Place Within Public View”: Delhi High Court Denies Anticipatory Bail Under SC/ST Act Even Though No Witness Could Be Traced

The Delhi High Court has denied anticipatory bail to a man under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act), affirming that the flyover is a “place within public view”.

The Court was deciding a Bail Application filed by the accused under Section 482 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), seeking anticipatory bail.

A Single Bench of Justice Ravinder Dudeja held, “The alleged incident took place on the road on a flyover which could be viewed by anybody. In her statement under Section 183 BNS, complainant stated that there were many public persons present, even though, no public witness could be traced out so far, the place of incident was indeed a “place within public view”. Therefore, the ingredients necessary to prima facie constitute an offence under Section 3 of the SC/ST Act, 1989, based on the allegations in the FIR and the statement under Section 183 BNS, stand satisfied.”

The Bench noted that the “public view” limb is not a superfluity, rather an essential element which the prosecution must prima facie establish to attract the offence.

Senior Advocate K.K. Manan appeared on behalf of the Petitioner/Accused, while APP Tarang Srivastava appeared on behalf of the Respondent/State.

Case Background

As per the allegation in the FIR, the Complainant was working as an Assistant Manager in a hospital for the past two months and there she came in contact with the Petitioner-accused. In July 2025, while returning from the hospital, she was stopped by the accused. On reaching Badarpur Flyover, he overtook and stopped her car. The Complainant became frightened as the accused allegedly broke the car window, forcefully pulled her out of the vehicle, physically assaulted her, molested her, and verbally abused her. She further alleged that the accused used caste related derogatory remarks "Chamaran tune aaj meri shikayat karke acha nahi kiya, aaj tujhe iska bhugtan karna padega" and threatened her not to report the incident to the police. It was also alleged that during assault, she fell down on the road and the accused allegedly dragged her by her collar, molested her by pressing her breast and continued to abuse her before fleeing from the scene.

After the incident, the Complainant called her husband, who after reaching the spot, made a PCR (Police Control Room) call. Based on the Complainant’s statement and medical report, an FIR under Sections 115, 126(2), 74, 78, 324(2), and 351(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) was registered. On the basis of the allegations made, Section 3(1)(r)(s)(w-ii) of the SC/ST Act was also invoked. Complainant, in her statement, further mentioned that the accused had come to her house on the night prior to the incident in an intoxicated state and threatened to kill her family. The Additional Sessions Judge dismissed the accused’s anticipatory bail application, and being aggrieved, he approached the High Court.

Reasoning

The High Court after hearing the contentions of the counsel, observed, “Thus, the settled law is that if a prima facie case under the Act exists, the statutory bar operates strongly against the grant of anticipatory bail but if the allegations do not prima facie disclose the commission of any offence under the SC/ST Act, the courts retain the jurisdiction to grant anticipatory bail.”

The Court said that an important ingredient of offence under Section 3 of SC/ST Act is that the act must be done in any place within the “public view”.

“The jurisprudence on “public view” requirement has crystallized in recent years. … Coming back the facts of the present case, there are categorical allegations in the FIR that petitioner made derogatory caste based slurs upon the complainant. Admittedly, petitioner does not belong to the SC/ST community. As per status report, notice under Section 94 BNSS was served to the complainant to produce her caste certificate and other documents. Complainant produced a pen-drive containing video of the place of incident, recorded by her in her mobile phone. Further, she produced the caste certificates of her husband and her father along with her marriage card and the copy of the marriage certificate”, it further noted.

The Court added that as per the caste certificate, the husband of the Complainant belongs to ‘Jatav’ caste and the father of the Complainant belongs to ‘Khatik’ caste.

“Hence, prima facie, an offence under SC/ST Act is made out from the bare reading of the FIR and the statement under Section 183 BNS, and therefore, the bar of Section 18 of the SC/ST Act shall apply in the present case against the grant of anticipatory bail”, it also said.

The Court, therefore, concluded that in view of the bar imposed by Section 18 of the SC/ST Act, accused is not entitled to the grant of anticipatory bail.

Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the Application and denied anticipatory bail to the accused.

Cause Title- Virender Singh Bidhuri v. State (NCT of Delhi) and Anr. (Neutral Citation: 2025:DHC:9396)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Senior Advocate K.K. Manan, Advocates Uditi Bali, Karmanya Singh Choudhary, Lavish Chandra, Yakshi Kataria, Savita Sethi, Mayank Arora, Shivani Varun, and Mehul Anand.

Respondent: APP Tarang Srivastava, Advocates (DHLSC) Sanjeev Kr. Baliyan, and Shivanshi Panwar.

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