MATA SEWAK UPADHYAY Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Full Bench has been constituted to decide the vires of the Scheduled Castes and Seheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (Briefly, the Act or the Act of 1989) in view of an order dated 28 -10 -1994, passed in Writ Petition No. 3956 (B) of 1994 -Manoj Kumar v. State of U. P., by a Division Bench of this Court consisting of Palok Basu and I. S. Mathur, JL, (also members of the Full Bench), which observed that several hundred writ petitions, inter alia, challenging the vires of the Act of 1989 and the validity of the Notification whereby Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code has been notified as non -bailable and cognizable offence in twenty districts of the State of Uttar Pradesh, are pending in this Court. As all these petitions, in the opinion of the aforesaid Bench, involve "intricate questions of validity of two important laws", the Bench observed that all these petitions be decided by a larger Bench.

(2.) THIS is how the Full Bench was constituted by the Hon'ble the Chief Justice by an order dated January 30, 1994 which heard learned counsel appearing for the parties in such cases at Allahabad and Lucknow on the vires of the Act of 1989 and the validity of the impugned notification.

(3.) IN one of his post -independence fiery speeches, Bharat Ratna Baba Saheb Dr. Ambedkar giving a graphic description of the pitiable conditions of the Dalits appealed to them as under :