Mere Knowledge Of Victim’s Caste Sufficient To Attract Section 3(1)(w) SC/ST Act; Not Required To Prove Sexual Act Was Committed Solely On Caste Basis: Delhi High Court

“A perusal of Section 3(1)(e)11 and Section 3(1)(r)12 of the SC/ ST Act reflect that the provisions therein are different from the provisions contained in Section 3(1)(w)13 thereof as mere knowledge of the fact that the victim is a member of a schedule caste or tribe would be sufficient to constitute the offence under Section 3(1)(w) of the SC/ ST Act, and does not require the prosecution to establish as an additional ingredient that the sexual act was committed solely or exclusively on account of the victim’s caste/ tribe”, the Bench noted further.

Advocate Suman Arora appeared for the petitioner and Satish Kumar, APP appeared for the respondent

The petitioner, a minor at the time of the incident, alleged that on March 31, 2016, she was forcibly taken outside her school by respondent no. 2 to Noida, where she was forced to consume beer and raped. Respondent no. 3 allegedly filmed the incident and attempted to assault her.

An FIR was initially registered under the IPC and POCSO Act. Following a complaint by the victim’s father to the SC/ST Commission six months later, a supplementary charge sheet added provisions of the SC/ST Act, Section 328 of the IPC, and Section 14(3) of the POCSO Act. The Trial Court, however, declined to frame charges under these additional provisions.

Challenging the Trial Court’s order under Sections 397, 401, 407 read with Section 482 of the CrPC, the victim sought to amend the charges. The High Court rejected a belated jurisdiction challenge raised after nine years and agreed, citing Ashabai Machindra Adhagale v. State of Maharashtra (2009) 3 SCC 789, that an FIR need not contain every factual detail.

“…in the considered opinion of this Court, mere non-mentioning of allegations pertaining to the offences under the SC/ ST Act either in her initial complaint/ FIR or in her statement under Section 164 CrPC and/ or a mere delay of six months cannot be treated as sufficient reason(s) to discard the applicability of the provisions of the SC/ ST Act, particularly, whence the affected party at the time of the offence was only a school going minor girl, who, had been subjected to gang rape, which being a bodily and heinous offence shook her mentally, physically and psychologically. It can easily be gauged that the affected party must have been under immense shock, trauma and humiliation, which, in all likelihood would, certainly have affected her ability to process, recollect and articulate every facet of the occurrence on the very first opportunity. Under such circumstances, time means patience, and amendments and/ or improvements by the affected party have to be given due weightage as they cannot simply be discarded and/ or brushed aside on the grounds of delay and/ or afterthoughts, unless there are some contradictions therein”, the Bench noted.

The Court held that initial omissions in the FIR and the six-month delay could not exclude the SC/ST Act given the victim's age and trauma. Based on shared locality, prior acquaintance, and documented casteist remarks, the Section 8(c) presumption of knowledge was triggered against respondent no. 2, warranting a charge under Section 3(1)(w).

Cause Title: Prosecutrix R v. State of NCT of Delhi & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:7954)

Appearances:

Petitioner: Suman Arora, Satya Prakash Gautam, Ajay Danial and Geeta, Advocates.

Respondent: Satish Kumar, APP, Aditya Vikram Singh, Gourav Singh, J.M. Kalia, Siddhartha Shukla and Dhruv Kalia, Advocates.

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