Trial and Evidence under the SC/ST Act

An atrocity case is won or lost at trial. The Act creates Special Courts, allows them to take cognizance directly, and asks for a day to day trial finished within two months of the charge-sheet. But the prosecution must still prove every ingredient: that the victim is a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe member, that the accused is not, that the words were spoken in public view, and that the act was driven by caste or done with knowledge of it. This note follows an atrocity trial from cognizance to judgment, explains how each ingredient is proved and what evidence courts accept, how the Section 8 presumptions work, which procedural lapses are fatal and which are curable, and how the victim takes part at every stage.

Figure 1: An atrocity trial, stage by stage

1. Cognizance and the Special Court

• Before 2016: committal needed. In Gangula Ashok v. State of A.P. (2000), the Supreme Court held that a Special Court is essentially a Court of Session and cannot take cognizance without committal by a Magistrate. In Rattiram v. State of M.P. (2012), a three-judge bench held that a trial held without committal is not vitiated unless the accused shows a failure of justice.
• Since 2016: direct cognizance. The second proviso to Section 14(1), inserted with effect from 26 January 2016, gives Exclusive Special Courts and Special Courts the power to directly take cognizance of offences under the Act.
• An added power, not an exclusive one. In Shantaben Bhurabhai Bhuriya v. Anand Athabhai Chaudhari (2021), the Supreme Court held that the proviso does not say 'only'. Cognizance by a Magistrate followed by committal does not vitiate the proceedings.
• Cognizance on a complaint. The Allahabad High Court (Division Bench) has held that the Special Court can treat an application for registration of an FIR as a complaint and take cognizance directly (Naresh Kumar Valmiki v. State of U.P., 2022). The Chhattisgarh High Court has held that only the Special Court, not a Judicial Magistrate, can take direct cognizance (Achla D. Sapre v. Asha Mahilkar, 2016), a view to be read subject to Shantaben (2021), which saves proceedings where a Magistrate takes cognizance and commits.

2. Framing of Charges and Joint Charges

• The test. The Special Court frames charge where there is ground to presume that the accused has committed the offence, and discharges where there is no sufficient ground (Sections 250 and 251 BNSS, formerly Sections 227 and 228 CrPC). In Dr Anand Rai v. State of M.P. (2026 INSC 141), the Supreme Court held that the BNSS standards are materially the same as those under the CrPC.
• Atrocity charges need their own material. In Dr Anand Rai, the Court set aside the atrocity charges because the record had no material on the complainant's caste or on the accused's knowledge of it, and sent the case back for trial on the penal charges.
• Joint charges. Penal offences arising out of the same transaction may be charged and tried together with the atrocity offence by the Special Court (Section 243 BNSS, formerly Section 220 CrPC). High Courts have held that the Special Court can try the connected penal offences (Sumit v. State of U.P., Allahabad High Court, 2020).
• Each limb stands on its own proof. The atrocity charge may fail while the BNS or IPC conviction stands. In Asharfi v. State of U.P. (2017), Patan Jamal Vali v. State of A.P. (2021) and Raju v. State of M.P. (2025 INSC 615), the Supreme Court set aside the Section 3(2)(v) conviction for want of caste-related evidence but upheld the rape conviction.
• Order on charge and appeal. Section 14A(1) excludes interlocutory orders. Several High Courts treat an order framing charge or refusing discharge as an intermediate order, not a purely interlocutory one, and allow the appeal (Guddu v. State of M.P., Madhya Pradesh High Court, 2022); the Himachal Pradesh High Court has taken the contrary view (Lagnesh Verma, 2026). Local precedent must be checked (Topic 30).

3. Proving the Status of Both Sides

Figure 2: What the prosecution must prove, and how

Burden of proving the victim’s caste

• On the prosecution. Membership of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe is the foundation of every offence under Section 3. The prosecution must prove it like any other fact, beyond reasonable doubt.
• The caste certificate. The usual proof is a caste or tribe certificate issued by the competent revenue authority, supported by the victim's own evidence and, where needed, school or revenue records. In Shivkumar v. State of Chhattisgarh (2025 INSC 1231), caste was proved by a certificate and oral evidence.
• Valid certificate required. The Chhattisgarh High Court has called a valid caste certificate from the competent authority a sine qua non, refusing to rely on an oral claim or a temporary six-month certificate (Milauram v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2026).
• Certificate is not conclusive. A certificate can be displaced by evidence of the true status. In Chinthada Anand v. State of A.P. (2026), a pastor who had converted to Christianity was held not to be a Scheduled Caste member despite his certificate, because under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 only a person professing Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism can be one. Caste status is acquired by birth, not by marriage (Valsamma Paul v. Cochin University, 1996).
• Scheduled Tribe status. Tribal status is not lost by religion alone, since the Scheduled Tribes Order contains no religion bar. The prosecution proves membership of a notified tribe of that State.

Proof that the accused is not SC/ST

• Why it matters. Section 3 opens with 'Whoever, not being a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe'. If the accused is also a member, the atrocity offence fails, though the penal offence may stand.
• Not fatal at the FIR stage. Omission of the accused's caste in the FIR is not a ground to quash; it is a matter for investigation and trial (Ashabai Machindra Adhagale v. State of Maharashtra, 2009).
• At trial. The prosecution leads evidence of the accused's community through witnesses, records or admissions. The defence may prove that the accused too belongs to a protected community.

4. Public View and Independent Witnesses

• The rule. For Section 3(1)(r) and (s), the insult or abuse must be 'in any place within public view'. A place within public view differs from a public place: a private building can qualify if members of the public, not merely relatives or friends, are present (Swaran Singh v. State, 2008).
• No public, no offence. Abuse inside an office chamber with colleagues arriving only later (Karuppudayar v. State, 2025 INSC 132), or inside a residence with no independent person present (Gunjan v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2026 INSC 468), is not within public view.
• The victim must be present. The words must be addressed to the victim in his presence (Asmathunnisa v. State of A.P., 2011).
• Independent witnesses. Because public view needs a member of the public, the evidence of at least one person outside the victim's circle becomes important. The law does not require a set number of independent witnesses, but where the prosecution names only relatives, the court will ask whether public view was really proved.
• Relatives are not disbelieved for that reason. A related witness is not an unreliable witness. The court scrutinises such evidence with care, but it may accept it where it is natural and consistent.

5. Caste Abuse and the Exact Words

• The words must appear somewhere. In Ramesh Chandra Vaishya v. State of U.P. (2023), the Supreme Court said it is desirable that the utterances be 'outlined, if not in the F.I.R. (which is not required to be an encyclopaedia of all facts and events), but at least in the charge-sheet'. A bare statement that caste abuses were hurled was not enough, and the case was quashed.
• Verbatim reproduction is not strictly required. Vaishya asks for the words to be outlined, not transcribed. But the court must be able to see from the words used whether they carried caste abuse or intent.
• Clause (r): intent tied to caste. Not every insult of a Scheduled Caste person is an atrocity. The insult must be meant to humiliate the victim for being a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe member (Hitesh Verma v. State of Uttarakhand, 2020; Shajan Skaria v. State of Kerala, 2024).
• Clause (s): the caste name as abuse. The abuse must be 'laced with caste name, or the caste name had been hurled as an abuse' (Keshaw Mahto v. State of Bihar, 2026).

6. The Section 8 Presumptions

Figure 3: Section 8: from proved fact to presumed fact

• Financial assistance, Section 8(a). If the accused is proved to have financed a person accused of an offence under the Chapter, the court presumes abetment unless the contrary is proved.
• Common intention or common object, Section 8(b). If a group is proved to have committed the offence as a sequel to an existing dispute about land or any other matter, the court presumes that it was committed in furtherance of the common intention or in prosecution of the common object.
• Knowledge of caste, Section 8(c). Inserted in 2016: if the accused had personal knowledge of the victim or the victim's family, the court presumes that he knew the victim's caste or tribal identity, unless the contrary is proved.
• Presumption of caste knowledge applied. In Shivkumar (2025 INSC 1231), decided on 14 October 2025, the Supreme Court held that the accused's acquaintance with the victim's family, whom he visited often, was enough to presume knowledge of caste under Section 8(c), and upheld the Section 3(2)(v) conviction under the post-2016 'knowing that' test.
• Base facts first. No presumption arises until the prosecution proves the base fact. Once it does, the burden shifts, and the accused can rebut the presumption on a preponderance of probabilities.

7. Electronic Evidence and Online Hate Speech

• Certificate for secondary electronic evidence. Copies of videos, messages, CCTV footage and posts need a certificate under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (formerly Section 65B of the Evidence Act). The certificate is a condition of admissibility when the original device is not produced (Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal, 2020).
• Online abuse and public view. The Kerala High Court has held that when insulting content is uploaded online, the victim is constructively present whenever it is accessed, so the digital space can satisfy public view (Sooraj V. Sukumar v. State of Kerala, 2022).
• Private messages differ. The Telangana High Court has held that private WhatsApp messages and emails exchanged between individuals are not within public view (D. Nirupama v. K. Kranti Kiran, 2025).
• Shajan Skaria did not settle public view online. In Shajan Skaria (2024), the Supreme Court decided the case on the absence of caste intent in a YouTube video. It did not rule on whether uploading satisfies public view.
• Speech against the community. Section 3(1)(u) covers promoting enmity or ill will against Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes by words, written or spoken, signs, visible representation or otherwise. Online posts can fall within it (Topic 21).

8. Medical, Revenue and Documentary Evidence

• Medical evidence. Injury reports, post-mortem reports and medico-legal examinations corroborate violence and sexual offences, and they also trigger relief instalments under the Rules. Absence of injuries does not by itself disprove a sexual offence; the victim's evidence remains primary.
• Land and revenue records. For wrongful occupation, dispossession or interference with land under Section 3(1)(f) and (g), pattas, allotment orders, mutation entries and possession records prove that the land was allotted to or belonged to the victim.
• Documentary evidence of boycott. Panchayat resolutions, notices, recordings and refusals of services are the usual proof of a social or economic boycott under Section 3(1)(zc).
• Public documents. Caste certificates and revenue records are public documents proved by certified copies. Their contents can still be challenged by evidence.

9. The Victim’s Testimony, Contradictions and Omissions

• Sole testimony. The victim is not an accomplice. If her evidence inspires confidence, it can be acted upon without corroboration (Raju v. State of M.P., 2025 INSC 615, restating the general rule in a case that also carried an atrocity charge).
• Consistency matters. In Shivkumar (2025), the victim's consistent account, her statement before the Magistrate and medical corroboration were enough to sustain the conviction.
• Minor contradictions. Small discrepancies in time, sequence or detail are natural and do not destroy credibility. The Court in Shivkumar noted that small or insignificant omissions cannot be the basis for treating witnesses as hostile.
• Material omissions. An omission of a vital fact from the earlier statement, such as the caste words or the presence of the public, can amount to a contradiction and weaken the atrocity charge.
• Hostile witnesses. The evidence of a hostile witness is not wiped out; the part found credible after careful scrutiny can be relied upon.

10. Delay, the Sixty-Day Rule and Procedural Lapses

Figure 4: Procedural lapses: fatal or curable?

• Delay in FIR. Delay is not fatal in itself if it is explained (State of H.P. v. Gian Chand, 2001). In atrocity cases, fear of the dominant group, economic dependence and refusal by the police to register are common explanations. Unexplained delay invites careful scrutiny of the whole case.
• Delay in investigation. Rule 7(2) requires the charge-sheet within sixty days and Rule 7(2A) requires any delay to be explained in writing. In Jitendra Kumar v. State of Rajasthan (2026), faced with an investigation pending for over two years, the Rajasthan High Court called for explanations from the investigating officers and their supervisors.
• Charge-sheet after sixty days. The Act attaches no invalidity to a late charge-sheet. The remedies are the written explanation, supervisory review, Section 4 proceedings against a defaulting officer, and default bail for the accused.
• Investigation by an officer below DSP. The atrocity offence fails, but the penal offences, validly investigated, go to trial (State of M.P. v. Chunnilal, 2009; State of M.P. v. Babbu Rathore, 2020). A valid notification under Section 9 can confer the power on other officers (State of Bihar v. Anil Kumar, 2017).
• Other irregularities. Errors and irregularities do not reverse a finding unless they have caused a failure of justice (Sections 506 to 511 BNSS, formerly Sections 460 to 465 CrPC).

11. Speedy Trial and the Victim’s Participation

• Two months. Section 14(2) requires enough courts so that cases are disposed of, as far as possible, within two months. Section 14(3) requires a day to day trial, with reasons recorded for an adjournment beyond the next day, and completion, as far as possible, within two months of the charge-sheet.
• Notice of every proceeding. The victim and dependants have a right to reasonable, accurate and timely notice of every court proceeding, including bail (Section 15A(3)).
• Documents and witnesses. The victim may apply to the Special Court to summon parties to produce documents or material, witnesses, or to examine persons present (Section 15A(4)).
• Heard at the key stages. The victim is entitled to be heard at bail, discharge, release, parole, conviction and sentence, and may file written submissions on conviction, acquittal or sentencing (Section 15A(5)).
• Support and record. The victim may take the help of NGOs, social workers or advocates (Section 15A(12)), and all proceedings are video recorded (Section 15A(10)).

12. Quick Revision and Memory Aids

• 'Status, stage, words, mind'. Status of both sides; public view as the stage; the words used; caste intent or knowledge.
• 'Express counter since 2016'. Direct cognizance under Section 14(1); committal still valid (Shantaben, 2021).
• 'Outline, not encyclopaedia'. It is desirable that the words be outlined at least in the charge-sheet (Vaishya, 2023).
• 'Money, Mob, Meeting'. Section 8(a), (b) and (c).
• 'Atrocity fails, IPC stands'. Asharfi (2017); Patan Jamal Vali (2021); Raju (2025).
• 'Certificate plus'. A certificate supported by other evidence; displaced by conversion (Chinthada Anand, 2026).

13. Frequently Asked Questions

Can a Special Court take cognizance without a committal order?

Yes, since 26 January 2016 under the second proviso to Section 14(1). Cognizance by a Magistrate followed by committal also remains valid.

Must the exact caste words be reproduced in the FIR?

Not verbatim, and not necessarily in the FIR. The Supreme Court has said it is desirable that they be outlined at least in the charge-sheet (Ramesh Chandra Vaishya, 2023).

If the atrocity charge fails, must the accused be acquitted of everything?

No. The penal charges are decided on their own evidence, and convictions under them are routinely upheld.

Is a caste certificate conclusive proof of caste?

No. It is strong evidence, but it can be displaced, for example by proof of conversion out of Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism.

Is a charge-sheet filed after sixty days invalid?

No. The delay must be explained and may expose the officer to action, but the charge-sheet remains valid.

14. Related Topics and Provisions

• Topics 19 and 20: Section 3(1)(r) and (s). Public view, intent and caste abuse.
• Topic 27: Sections 5 to 9. The Section 8 presumptions.
• Topics 29, 30 and 32. Special Courts, appeals and Section 15A rights.
• Topic 40: FIR and Investigation. Collecting the evidence discussed here.
• Sections 3, 8, 14, 15A; Rule 7; Sections 243, 250, 251, 506 to 511 BNSS; Section 63 BSA. The provisions discussed