Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday ordered a review of all cases filed under the SC/ST Act in the State since January 2016 to identify those which have not been registered under the amended provisions, causing the victims and their families to be denied their due legal compensation.
The orders were issued following a meeting with a delegation of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, led by their chairman Prof (Dr) Ram Shankar Katheria and vice-chairman l Murugan.
The delegation told the Chief Minister that many police officers were still registering cases under the relatively milder provisions of the old SC and ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, instead of the more stringent clauses of the amended Act of 2015, which was notified in 2016.
As a result, the victims or their families were not getting the higher compensation they were entitled to under the amended legislation, it was told.
The delegation also apprised the Chief Minister of the absence of awareness among police officers in the lower ranks, such as the investigating officers, about the amended SC/ST Act, 2015.
Capt Amarinder directed the DG (Intelligence) Dinkar Gupta to arrange for the sensitization and training of the police officers.
Asserting that his Government was duty bound to protect the interests of all minority communities and groups in the State, the Chief Minister assured the delegation of stringent measures to ensure strict enforcement of the Act in order to prevent atrocities against SCs and STs.
On the issue of recent deaths of persons belonging to SC community in reported cases of forced manual scavenging, the Chief Minister assured the delegation of total implementation of the Supreme Court’s guidelines in this regard.
To the delegation’s suggestion of employing robots for cleaning sewers to completely abolish the illegal practice of manual scavenging, the Chief Minister directed the concerned department to ascertain the viability of the proposal so that a final decision could be taken in this regard.