SC rejects Centre's plea to stay verdict on SC/ST law

New Delhi: With the Centre on Thursday demanding a stay on the Supreme Court order on the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Act, it seems the government is 'buying time' for the controversy to settle down.

As it was clear from SC's earlier stand on the verdict, the top court on Thursday rejected the Centre's demand to stay it's March 20 order.

The top court also strongly disagreed with the Centre's contention that its March 20 verdict had led to the loss of lives in the violence that had broken out later in several states.

As per legal experts, the government should have issued an Ordinance instead of moving the apex court for review of the verdict.

"When the top court had justified its order stating that it had considered every aspect while deciding on the issue, the Centre's repeated attempt to plea SC to review the order indicates that the government is not in a hurry," the legal experts said.

It's worth mentioning that Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had in April announced that the government would issue an ordinance to uphold the rights of SCs and STs if the top court does not go back on its judgment deleting the provision of immediate arrest on complaints from Dalits.

In response to the Centre's demand of stay on its order, a bench of Justices AK Goel and UU Lalit on Thursday observed that the top court is 100 percent in favour of protecting the rights of these communities and punishing those guilty of atrocities against them.

Attorney General KK Venugopal, who represented the Centre in the apex court, said that top court could not make rules or guidelines which go against the law passed by the legislature.

Venugopal also pointed out that the SC/ST verdict had resulted in the loss of life and that the case is referred to a larger bench. The Centre had moved the apex court on the 2nd of last month seeking review of its judgement by which safeguards were put on the provisions for immediate arrest under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.