The Karnataka High Court has convicted ten dominant caste individuals for intentionally humiliating and assaulting members of Scheduled Caste (SC) in a 15-year-old case in Dunda village, Turuvekere taluk of Tumakuru district. Setting aside the verdict of the trial court, the High Court sentenced the accused to one year of imprisonment. The case concerns a complaint filed in August 2008, when Lakshmamma (complainant) and others belonging to a Scheduled Caste community, were attacked by a group of people belonging to Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities.
Lakshmamma had said that the accused entered the Dalit Colony in the evening, subjecting them to verbal abuse laden with derogatory references to their caste. Subsequently, the attackers physically assaulted the victims using clubs and stones. This assault reportedly occurred following an earlier attempt on the same day by a few Dalit individuals to file a criminal complaint against an individual from a dominant caste, stemming from a scuffle earlier in the morning. According to the prosecution, the evening attack was executed as a retaliatory measure against the morning's complaint. In 2011, the trial court acquitted all eleven individuals accused in the case, a decision that the state did not contest or challenge.
Lakshmamma, who was among those assaulted, filed an appeal before the High Court, questioning the correctness of the trial court's decision. On October 31, the High Court admitted the appeal. Justice JM Khazi, the single judge presiding over the case, noted that the attack was a direct consequence of two SC individuals filing a police complaint against a member of a dominant caste. “The accused have chosen to assault complainant and others for the simple reason that though they belong to Schedule Caste, they had the courage or audacity of complaining against a person belonging to forward community,” the court said.
The High Court pointed out that the trial court wrongly concluded that the criminal complaint was backdated and dismissed the entire prosecution case as false. "The trial Court cannot stop by just making an observation that the complaint and FIR are anti-dated. It has to state how the prosecution is benefitted by it or the accused are prejudiced," remarked the High Court.
The High Court further criticised the trial court for hastily delivering its verdict without a thorough examination of specific evidence on record. "The view taken by the trial court is wholly unreasonable and is not a plausible view. Certainly, there is a non-consideration of evidence placed on record. There is also a palpable misreading of evidence, and consequently, the conclusions arrived at by the trial court are perverse," observed the court.
The High Court overturned the acquittal of all accused individuals. Given that one of the accused had passed away during the pending case, the High Court sentenced the remaining ten individuals to one year of imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 3,000.