‘Those who don’t worship Ram are chamars’ not casteist offence: Allahabad HC

The Allahabad High Court has dismissed an appeal filed against the alleged objectionable comments made against Dalits by a seer during a religious talk event in January this year.

The petitioner filed an appeal after a special judge for SC/ST cases dismissed an application against remarks made by Swami Rambhadracharya.

Dismissing the appeal filed by one Prakash Chandra, Justice Saurabh Srivastava observed, "Having perused the grounds taken up while preferring the instant appeal, it is crystal clear that no specific offence under SC/ST Act, 1989, Section 67 of IT Act and other sections of IPC is attracted."

The petitioner filed an application under Section 156(3) (CrPC) seeking court direction to register an FIR over certain statements made by Rambhadracharya.

These comments targeted a Scheduled Caste community and attracted the offence under the SC/ST Act and certain provisions of the IPC, he said in his plea.

The SC/ST Act special judge, Prayagraj, dismissed the application in an order dated 15 February 2024 on grounds of lack of maintainability. The petitioner then filed the present criminal appeal before the high court.

Appearing for Rambhadracharya, senior advocate M.C. Chaturvedi submitted that the reasoning and finding recorded by the court of special judge is quite reasonable and justified.

He submitted that Rambhadracharya's words are not an offence under the SC/ST Act, 1989, or Section 67 of the IT Act as submitted in the appeal.

The additional government advocate appearing for the state government also opposed the appeal, and said the special court order has no legal infirmity and the instant appeal should be dismissed.

After a detailed hearing, the high court in its decision dated 4 October dismissed the appeal.

ED: The word 'chamar' literally means leather-worker, and is recognised as a Scheduled Caste from the Jatav community.