New Delhi: In a significant step towards reaching out to dalits, the government has begun inter-ministerial consultations to bring in an ordinance to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that put safeguards on the arrest of those accused of committing atrocities on SCs and STs, official sources said. This comes barely a month after dalit groups had held all-India protests against the alleged dilution of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act through the Supreme Court’s March 20 ruling.
The timing of the decision is interesting as the government is mindful of the fact that Lok Sabha polls are less than a year away. Therefore, in order to soothe the sentiments of Dalits, it has begun to pave the way for the ordinance. The protests held on April 2 had turned violent across the country, leaving many people dead.
