Section 3(1)(a) to (e): Degrading and Humiliating Acts

The first five clauses of Section 3(1) describe some of the oldest and most vicious rituals of caste domination: forcing a person to eat or drink filth, dumping excreta or carcasses at a home, garlanding with footwear, parading a person naked, and forcibly shaving the head or moustache or blackening the face. These acts are designed less to injure the body than to announce, publicly, that the victim is of lower worth. The 2015 Amendment Act rewrote and expanded these clauses. This note sets out each clause with its exact words, identifies its ingredients and mental element, compares these degradation offences with the insult offences in clauses (r) and (s), and explains how they protect human dignity under Article 21.

Section 3(1)(a) to (e): the five degradation offences

Figure 1: Section 3(1)(a) to (e): the five degradation offences

1. Common Features of Clauses (a) to (e)

Accused and victim. The accused must not be a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe member; the victim must be a member (Topic 13).
Punishment. Imprisonment of not less than six months, up to five years, and fine. Probation is excluded for offenders above eighteen (Section 19), and anticipatory bail is barred where a prima facie case is disclosed (Sections 18, 18A).
No public-view requirement. Unlike clauses (r) and (s), none of these clauses requires the act to be done in public view. The degradation is the offence, wherever it happens.
Relief. Victims are entitled to monetary relief under Annexure I of the 1995 Rules and to the rights in Section 15A.

2. Clause (a): Forcing an Inedible or Obnoxious Substance

Section 3(1)(a)

puts any inedible or obnoxious substance into the mouth of a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe or forces such member to drink or eat such inedible or obnoxious substance;

Two forms. Putting the substance into the victim's mouth, or forcing the victim to eat or drink it. The first needs no proof of force; the second needs compulsion, which may be by threat.
Inedible or obnoxious. Anything not fit to be eaten (mud, dung, urine, excreta, stale or contaminated food) or offensive to ordinary sensibilities. The purpose is degradation, so the test is how the substance is ordinarily regarded, not whether it is chemically harmful.
Mental element. The act itself is deliberate. Where it causes harm, BNS offences of hurt or administering a noxious substance may also be charged.
History. The original clause (i) of 1989 already punished forcing a member to drink or eat such a substance. The 2016 recasting added the first form, putting the substance into the mouth, which needs no proof of force.

3. Clauses (b) and (c): Dumping Excreta, Sewage, Carcasses and Obnoxious Substances

Section 3(1)(b) and (c)

(b) dumps excreta, sewage, carcasses or any other obnoxious substance in premises, or at the entrance of the premises, occupied by a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe;

(c) with intent to cause injury, insult or annoyance to any member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe, dumps excreta, waste matter, carcasses or any other obnoxious substance in his neighbourhood;

Clause (b): at the premises. Dumping excreta, sewage, carcasses or any other obnoxious substance in, or at the entrance of, premises occupied by a member. Occupation, not ownership, matters: a tenant's home or a hut on common land qualifies. No specific intent is written into the clause; dumping at the victim's own door is itself the message.
Clause (c): in the neighbourhood. Dumping excreta, waste matter, carcasses or obnoxious substances in the victim's neighbourhood. Because the neighbourhood is shared space, the clause requires a specific intent to cause injury, insult or annoyance to the member.
Sewage and carcasses. 'Sewage' in clause (b) catches the diversion of drains or septic waste onto a Dalit home; 'carcasses' reflects the old practice of forcing the removal of dead animals on these communities, which clause (i) separately punishes.
Overlap. Public nuisance and mischief under the BNS may also apply. Under the Act, the minimum sentence and special procedure attach.

💡 Remember (b) and (c) by distance

Close to the door, no intent needed: clause (b). Out in the neighbourhood, intent must be shown: clause (c). The further the filth is from the victim's premises, the more the prosecution must prove that it was aimed at him.

4. Clause (d): Garlanding with Footwear and Parading Naked

Section 3(1)(d)

garlands with footwear or parades naked or semi-naked a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe;

Garlanding with footwear. New in 2016. A garland is a mark of honour; a garland of shoes inverts it into public dishonour, a practice long used to humiliate Dalits accused of transgressing caste norms.
Parading naked or semi-naked. Parading naked was in the original clause (iii); 'semi-naked' was added in 2016 to close the gap that a partly clothed victim could otherwise create.
Publicity is inherent, not an ingredient. Parading is by nature done before others, but the clause does not require proof of public view.
Women victims. Where the victim is a woman, the BNS offences of assault or criminal force with intent to disrobe and to outrage modesty (Sections 76 and 74) also apply, and Section 3(1)(w) may be attracted for sexual conduct.

5. Clause (e): Tonsuring, Removing Moustaches, Painting and Similar Acts

Section 3(1)(e)

forcibly commits on a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe any act, such as removing clothes from the person, forcible tonsuring of head, removing moustaches, painting face or body or any other similar act, which is derogatory to human dignity;

Force is essential. The act must be committed 'forcibly' on the member. Consent, genuinely given, takes the act outside the clause.
Removing clothes and painting face or body. Both appeared in the original clause (iii) of 1989, together with the residuary words 'any similar act which is derogatory to human dignity'. Blackening the face is an old form of public shaming.
Forcible tonsuring and removing moustaches. New in 2016. Head-shaving has long been used as a caste punishment, and in many regions a moustache, especially an upturned one, has been treated as a mark of status that dominant groups did not allow Dalits to display. Forcibly removing it is a direct attack on self-respect.
'Any other similar act, which is derogatory to human dignity'. A residuary phrase read in the light of the listed examples: the act must be of the same kind (a forcible act on the person that publicly marks or degrades) and must be derogatory to human dignity.

Reading 'any other similar act' in clause (e)

Figure 2: Reading 'any other similar act' in clause (e)

Recent incidents show why the residuary phrase matters. In July 2023, a video from Sidhi district in Madhya Pradesh showing a man urinating on a tribal labourer led to the accused's arrest, an FIR that reportedly invoked the IPC and the SC/ST Act, and detention under the National Security Act. The reports do not identify the clause relied on and no court has ruled on it, but in the author's view acts of this kind fit the class of acts derogatory to human dignity that the residuary words are meant to catch.

6. Acts Derogatory to Dignity after the 2015 Amendment

Before 2016. The original clauses (i) to (iii) covered forcing a member to eat or drink obnoxious substances, dumping excreta or carcasses in the premises or neighbourhood with intent to injure, insult or annoy, and forcibly removing clothes, parading naked, painting the face or body, or committing any similar act derogatory to human dignity.
After 2016. Putting a substance into the mouth was added to clause (a); clause (b) was separated so that dumping in or at the entrance of the premises needs no specific intent, and sewage was added; semi-naked parading, garlanding with footwear, forcible tonsuring and removing moustaches were added; and the residuary words of clause (e) were retained as 'any other similar act'.
Wider dignity offences elsewhere. The 2016 recasting also added obstruction in wearing footwear or new clothes, riding a horse in a wedding procession, and similar exclusions under clause (za)(B), and witchcraft-related harm under (zb). Together with (a) to (e), these punish the symbolic enforcement of caste rank.

7. Degradation and Caste-Based Public Humiliation

Clauses (a) to (e) sit alongside the insult offences in clauses (r) and (s), which punish intentional insult or intimidation with intent to humiliate, and abuse by caste name, in any place within public view. They are often charged together, but their ingredients differ.

Degradation offences and insult offences compared

Figure 3: Degradation offences and insult offences compared

Public view. Essential for (r) and (s), and interpreted strictly (Swaran Singh, 2008; Hitesh Verma, 2020; Karuppudayar, 2025); not required for (a) to (e).
Caste-directed intent. For (r) and (s), the insult must target caste identity (Shajan Skaria, 2024). For (a) to (e), the acts are themselves recognised rituals of caste degradation; the prosecution must still show the accused knew the victim's identity.
Language. Caste names used as slurs are insulting in themselves when used to humiliate (Swaran Singh v. State, 2008; Arumugam Servai v. State of Tamil Nadu, 2011).

📖 Swaran Singh v. State, (2008) 8 SCC 435

Facts: The informant, a Scheduled Caste member, alleged that he was called by caste names as a term of abuse by the appellants: by some of them while he stood near a car parked at the gate of a house, and by another inside a building where no outsider was present.

Held: The Supreme Court held that calling a person by a caste name such as 'chamar' with intent to insult is an offence under the Act, and distinguished a 'place within public view' from a 'public place'. The gate of a house is a place within public view (as would be a lawn outside a house visible from the road), and the prosecution continued against the appellants who spoke there; the proceedings against the appellant whose words were uttered inside the building, with no member of the public present, were quashed.

Ratio: Caste slurs meant to humiliate are punishable; the setting must be within public view, which is wider than a public place.

⚠ Charge the right clause

If the accused forcibly shaved the victim's head in a private courtyard, charge clause (e): public view is not needed. If he abused the victim by caste name in the same courtyard with no outsiders present, clause (s) fails for want of public view. Many cases fail because the prosecution charges only (r) or (s) where a degradation clause fitted the facts better.

8. Overlap with the General Law

Hurt and criminal force. BNS Sections 115 and 131 (hurt and criminal force), and 117 and 118 for grievous or armed hurt, may apply to the physical element.
Offences against women. BNS Sections 74 (assault to outrage modesty), 76 (assault with intent to disrobe) and 79 (insult to modesty).
Public nuisance and mischief. For dumping of filth, BNS provisions on public nuisance and mischief.
Scheduled offences. Several of these, such as hurt and the offences against women, also appear in the Schedule, so Section 3(2)(va) can apply in addition where the accused knew the victim's identity. The offender cannot be punished twice for the same offence (Article 20(2); Section 26, General Clauses Act).

9. Quick Revision and Memory Aids

'Mouth, door, street, shoes, shave'. Clauses (a) to (e) in order.
'Door needs no intent; street needs intent'. Clause (b) versus clause (c).
'Mouth, entrance, sewage, semi-naked, shoes, shave, moustache'. The elements added by the 2015 Amendment Act.
'(e) needs force'. 'Forcibly commits'; consent takes the act out.
'Similar act, same family'. Ejusdem generis for the residuary words in (e).
'Degradation anywhere; insult only in public view'. Clauses (a) to (e) versus (r) and (s).
'Six months to five years, no probation'. Punishment for every clause.

10. Frequently Asked Questions

Must the degrading act be done in public view?

No. Clauses (a) to (e) contain no public-view requirement. That requirement belongs to clauses (r) and (s).

What is the difference between clauses (b) and (c)?

Clause (b) punishes dumping filth in or at the entrance of premises occupied by the member, without any stated intent. Clause (c) punishes dumping in the member's neighbourhood and requires intent to cause injury, insult or annoyance.

Is forcibly shaving a Dalit man's moustache an offence?

Yes. Clause (e), as recast in 2016, expressly names removing moustaches, together with forcible tonsuring, as acts derogatory to human dignity.

How is 'any other similar act' interpreted?

In the light of the listed examples: it must be a forcible act on the person of the same kind, which is derogatory to human dignity.

Can clause (d) and the BNS be charged together?

Yes. Parading a woman naked, for instance, can be charged under clause (d) and BNS Sections 74 and 76, but the accused cannot be punished twice for the same offence.

11. Related Topics and Provisions

Topic 13: Basic Requirements of Section 3. Accused, victim, knowledge and caste nexus.
Topic 5: Meaning and Nature of Atrocity. Public view and the families of offences.
Topic 6: Objects and Constitutional Values. Human dignity under Article 21.
Section 3(1)(r), (s), (za)(B); Sections 18, 19; Annexure I. Related clauses, bail, probation and relief