The Cabinet, on Thursday, decided to set up 33 police stations exclusively for atrocity cases against citizens belonging to SC/ST communities.
As many as 450 vacancies in these stations will be filled up to ensure their smooth functioning. The government believes that this move will result in prompt investigation into atrocity cases, which fall among the lowest conviction rates currently. Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala have established special police stations to deal with atrocities against SC/STs.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in his 2023-24 budget, had announced that his government would take measures to strengthen the functioning of the directorate of civil rights enforcement.
Accordingly, the Cabinet decided to set up a police station each in all districts, while Bengaluru will have two police stations. Each station will be headed by an officer of the rank of DySP/ACP.
The new initiative will cause an annual expenditure of around Rs 73 crore to the exchequer.
After the Cabinet meeting, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil told reporters that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, was being implemented by the local police, who are overburdened with law and order, crime, VVIP bandobast, traffic, election duties etc. Due to this, the quality of investigation by the local police was not satisfactory.
“Important cases like atrocity cases couldn’t get due attention, leading to enormous delay in every aspect of investigation,” Patil said.
Local police
Citizens will not be put to hardship as complaints pertaining to atrocity cases can be lodged with the local police.
“Once a case is booked, it will immediately be transferred to the concerned civil rights police stations,” he said.
Low conviction rate
Till end of December 2022, as many as 7,633 cases were registered under this Act, while only 1,723 cases were disposed of.
As many as 1,363 cases saw acquittals in the same period. Only 68 cases resulted in conviction, which translates to just 4per cent. It is one of the lowest in the country, the minister said.