Section 3(1)(y) to (zc): Access, Eviction and Boycott

Untouchability survives less through dramatic violence than through quiet exclusion: the Dalit groom told to dismount his horse, the family kept out of the temple, the child made to sit apart in school, the labourers no one will hire after they asked for fair wages, the household driven out of the village. Clauses (y) to (zc) of Section 3(1) turn these acts of exclusion into atrocities. They protect access to public places, water, roads, worship, schools and hospitals; the right to live where one lives; the freedom to celebrate, dress and travel like anyone else; the right to earn a living; and protection against social and economic boycott. This note explains each clause, the definitions of boycott, and how these offences relate to the Protection of Civil Rights Act and Article 17.

Figure 1: The access, residence and boycott clauses of Section 3(1)

1. The Statutory Text

• Old and new. Clause (y) reproduces 1989 clause (xiv). Clause (z) reproduces 1989 clause (xv) and adds the public duty proviso. Clauses (za) and (zc) are new from 26 January 2016.
• 'In any manner'. Clause (za) reaches every form of obstruction or prevention: a threat, a locked gate, a fine imposed by a caste panchayat, a rule of the village, or physical force.
• Equally with others. The yardstick is equality: the member must be able to use the resource on the same terms as everyone else.

2. Access to Public Places: Clause (za)(D)

• Educational institutions. Refusing admission, keeping a child out of a classroom, making Dalit children sit apart or clean toilets, or barring them from the midday meal line are all ways of obstructing entry and use.
• Hospitals, dispensaries and primary health centres. Refusing to examine, admit or touch a patient because of caste, or keeping him outside the ward, is obstruction.
• Shops and markets. A shopkeeper who refuses to sell, or insists on handing goods from a distance, or a market committee that bars Dalit vendors, obstructs access.
• Places of public entertainment and any other public place. Cinemas, parks, community halls, panchayat ghars and similar places. The residuary words 'any other public place' keep the list open.
• Utensils meant for public use. Separate cups at a tea stall, the 'two tumbler' practice, or refusing to serve in the common utensils of a public eatery.

These protections give criminal teeth to Article 15(2), which forbids any disability or restriction on grounds of caste regarding access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment, and the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public, and to Article 17, which abolishes untouchability in any form.

3. Roads, Water, Conveyances and Commons: Clause (za)(A) and Clause (y)

• Roads and passage. Blocking a lane that Dalit families use, or forbidding them to walk through the main street, falls under (za)(A).
• Water sources. Keeping a member from a well, tank, tap, stream or bathing ghat. Fouling the water itself is clause (x) (Topic 15).
• Public conveyance. Refusing to let a member board a bus, shared auto or boat, or forcing him to stand apart.
• Burial and cremation grounds. Denying the use of the common cremation ground, or forcing a Dalit funeral to take a different path, is covered expressly.
• Customary right of passage: clause (y). Clause (y) protects rights of way based on custom, such as a traditional path to a temple, pond or market, and access to any place of public resort open to others. The member need not prove ownership, only the customary right or public access.

4. Places of Worship and Processions: Clause (za)(C)

Clause (za)(C) punishes obstructing a member from entering a place of worship open to the public or to other persons of the same religion, and from taking part in or taking out religious, social or cultural processions, including jatras. It complements Article 25(2)(b), which permits laws throwing open Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus, and Section 3 of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, which punishes religious disabilities enforced on the ground of untouchability. The Madras High Court has held that barring Scheduled Caste persons from a temple on caste grounds is untouchability forbidden by Article 17, exposing those responsible to prosecution.

• Entry. Stopping a member at the temple gate, making him worship from outside, or excluding him from the sanctum when others enter.
• Processions. Refusing to let a Dalit community take its deity's procession through the main street, or excluding members from the village jatra.
• Customary exclusion is no defence. A claim that 'this has always been the custom' does not justify exclusion; custom based on untouchability is void under Article 17.

5. Marriage Processions, Horses, Footwear and New Clothes: Clause (za)(B)

Some of the most persistent caste conflicts arise over symbols of dignity: a Dalit groom riding a horse, a wedding procession passing through the upper-caste lane, a young man wearing new clothes or riding a motorcycle in the village. Clause (za)(B) names each of these expressly: mounting or riding bicycles or motorcycles, wearing footwear or new clothes in public places, taking out a wedding procession, and mounting a horse or any other vehicle during wedding processions. Obstructing or preventing any of these, in any manner, is an atrocity.

6. Profession, Trade and Employment: Clause (za)(E)

• What is protected. Practising any profession, carrying on any occupation, trade or business, or being employed in any job that others have a right to take up.
• Examples. Stopping a Dalit man from opening a tea stall in the market, forcing a Dalit cook out of a school kitchen because parents object, or preventing a member from plying a taxi at the common stand.
• Overlap with boycott. Where the whole community refuses to deal with the member, clause (zc) also applies (Part 8 below).

7. Forcing a Member to Leave House, Village or Residence: Clause (z)

• Forces or causes. 'Forces' covers direct compulsion; 'causes' covers indirect methods, such as creating conditions of fear, burning houses, or cutting off water and work until the family leaves.
• House, village or other place of residence. The clause protects the home in the narrowest and widest sense: the dwelling, the village, and any other place where the member lives.
• Public duty proviso. Action taken in discharge of a public duty, such as eviction under a court decree or lawful removal of an encroachment, is excluded. The proviso does not protect a public servant who uses his office as a cover for caste-driven expulsion.

8. Social and Economic Boycott: Clause (zc)

Figure 2: Two kinds of boycott, both defined in Section 2(1)

Boycott is the oldest instrument of caste control. It needs no weapon, only agreement: no one will sell to the family, hire them, speak to them, attend their wedding or let them draw water. Clause (zc) punishes anyone who imposes or threatens a social or economic boycott of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe person, family or group. The 2015 Amendment Act defined both kinds of boycott in Section 2(1), so the clause does not depend on vague notions of 'ostracism'.

• Imposing. Announcing the boycott, enforcing it through fines or threats, or taking part in its enforcement.
• Threatening. A threat is enough; the boycott need not actually begin. A caste panchayat resolution warning that anyone dealing with a family will be fined is a threat.
• Person, family or group. The clause covers boycott of an individual, a household or a whole community, such as a Dalit hamlet.
• Post-poll boycott. Clause (n) separately punishes imposing or threatening boycott after an election (Topic 17).
• Khap and caste panchayats. In Deepa Ram Meghwal v. State of Rajasthan (2026), the Rajasthan High Court held that social boycotts imposed by khap panchayats violate Articles 14, 15 and 21, and issued directions to the State to prevent them.

9. The Catch-All Protection of Rights

No single clause of Section 3(1) says 'obstructs the exercise of any right'. The Act achieves a similar effect through several open-textured phrases: 'in any manner' in clause (za); 'any other public place' in (za)(D); 'any customary right of passage' and 'place of public resort' in (y); 'forces or causes' in (z); and the definitions of boycott, which include any refusal of customary service. Behind them stands the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, whose Section 7(1)(a) punishes preventing any person from exercising a right accruing to him by reason of the abolition of untouchability, and Section 7(1)(b), which punishes molesting, injuring or boycotting him for exercising such a right.

Figure 3: Two statutes against exclusion: PCR Act and SC/ST Act

• When to use which. Where the accused is not a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe member and the facts fit a clause of Section 3(1), the SC/ST Act applies, with its minimum sentence, Special Court and victim rights.
• Where the PCR Act still matters. Where the accused belongs to a protected group, or the conduct falls outside the specific clauses, the PCR Act, with its presumption in Section 12, remains available.

10. Quick Revision and Memory Aids

• 'Y is the way'. Clause (y): customary passage and places of public resort.
• 'Z is the zone of home'. Clause (z): forced to leave house, village or residence; public duty excepted.
• 'ZA: A-B-C-D-E'. A Access to commons, B Bridegroom's horse and dignity in public, C Ceremonies of worship and processions, D Doors of school, hospital, shop, E Earning a living.
• 'ZC: Cut off'. Social or economic boycott, imposed or threatened.
• 'Mirchpur'. Arson and expulsion of Balmiki families, 2010; Delhi High Court convictions, 2018.

11. Frequently Asked Questions

A village temple is managed by a private trust. Is keeping Dalits out an offence?

Yes, if the temple is open to the public or to other persons of the same religion. Private management does not change its public character.

Is refusing to hire a Dalit labourer an offence?

An individual refusal, for ordinary reasons, is not. It becomes an offence under (zc) when it forms part of an imposed or threatened economic boycott, or under (za)(E) when it obstructs him from taking up employment open to others.

The police stopped a Dalit wedding procession for traffic reasons. Is that an atrocity?

Not if the restriction is genuine and applies to all processions. It is if the police, or anyone else, stop it because the groom is Dalit.

Does clause (z) apply to eviction by a landlord?

Lawful eviction through a court decree is a public process, not an atrocity. Forcing a Scheduled Caste tenant out by threats, violence or cutting off amenities, without legal process, is.

Is a caste panchayat’s threat of boycott enough without actual boycott?

Yes. Clause (zc) punishes threatening a boycott as well as imposing it.

12. Related Topics and Provisions

• Topic 4: PCR Act and SC/ST Act. The relationship between the two statutes.
• Topic 15: Land, Property and Water. Clauses (f), (g), (x) and (za)(A).
• Topic 17: Political and Electoral Rights. Post-poll boycott under clause (n).
• Section 2(1)(bc), (eb); Section 3(1)(y), (z), (za), (zc); PCR Act ss.3, 4, 7, 12; Articles 15(2), 17, 25(2)(b). The provisions discussed