The Andhra Pradesh High Court in Akkala Rami Reddy and Ors. v. State of Andhra Pradesh and Anr. (CRL.P. No. 7114 of 2022) held on 30 April 2025, that the relevant provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (hereinafter the Atrocities Act) would not apply to a person, though originally a member of the Scheduled Caste, but later converted to Christianity.

The High Court opined that the caste system is alien to Christianity and further held that the complaint under the Atrocities Act is false.

This judgement, which comes in a litany of verdicts and observations made by various courts, opens a Pandora’s box on what is a politically sensitive topic. While many benefits of affirmative actions of the State might have been denied to these historically marginalised groups owing to the prevailing interpretations about caste’s linkage with religion, these judgements have underlying implications for the protection afforded to these communities from atrocities committed against them, latently or patently linked to their social identities.

In the words of noted human rights activist K. Balagopal, “Living apart as they do from social realities, judges sometimes come up with wrong judgments at disastrously wrong moments.”

The case of Akkala Rami Reddy and Ors. v. State of Andhra Pradesh and Anr. (2025), decided by a single-judge bench of the AP High Court, passed an order for the quashing of the First Information Report (FIR) under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhitha, 2023), filed by the 2nd Respondent, Chinthada Anand, the victim and a pastor working in Pittavanipalem village in Bapatla District for over a decade.

A mob allegedly assaulted him, threatened him, and hurled caste slurs at him. It is said that the victim had converted to Christianity from Hinduism. The petitioners were charged under various sections of the Atrocities Act, including Section 3(1)(s), which criminalises hurling of abuses at a member of a Scheduled caste or Scheduled tribe by the name of their caste, along with sections of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

In the facts of the case, the victim was allegedly threatened on the phone with death threats along with being abused in the name of his caste. Later, he was also reportedly assaulted by a mob and his family was abused in the name of his caste. The case was first heard at the IV Additional District and Sessions Judge Court in Guntur.

The High Court held in this case that as the victim had converted to Christianity and the caste system is alien to the same, he may not find protection under the Atrocities Act. The Court also remarked that in this case, there was no question of whether the conversion took place in other cases and added that the Atrocities Act, even though a protective legislation, is not applicable in this case, also implying that the complaint itself was false.

The judgment went into great lengths to describe the various sects of Christianity in Andhra Pradesh and various decisions of the Supreme Court. The judgement, interestingly, also cited a Supreme Court judgement that said the caste of the person does not change with the change of religion, as the caste is linked to the birth of the person.

Quashing the petition, the High Court stated that the case could not be sustained and that the complaint is frivolous on the ground that the complainant has converted to Christianity and thus cannot be said to be part of the Scheduled Caste community.

Needless to emphasise, the High Court seems to have contradicted itself.

The legal and legislative lacunae

With this judgment, it may be seen that a major lacuna in law has been exposed, raising a considerable number of questions.

The main reason given by the High Court was that as Christianity has not been mentioned as one of the religions in The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, and, hence, the same cannot be extended to the persons who have converted to Christianity from Hinduism.

Paragraph 3 of this Order states that “…no person who professes a religion different from Hinduism shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste,” while also adding that “Provided that every member of the Ramdasi, Kabirpanthi, Mazhabi or Sikligar caste resident in Punjab … be deemed to be a member of the Scheduled Castes whether he professes the Hindu or the Sikh religion.”

While the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Lists (Modification) Order of 1956 amended the lists of castes to be included, it was in The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Orders (Amendment) Act of 1990 that Buddhism was added alongside Sikhism, about Paragraph 3 of the 1950 Order.

It is important to note that the exclusion of Christianity is a continued legacy from the Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1936. Paragraph 3 (a) of this Order states that “no Indian Christian shall be deemed a member of the scheduled caste,” and that “in Bengal no person who professes Buddhism or a tribal religion shall be deemed to be a member of any scheduled caste.”

It is also important to note that both Sikhism and Buddhism themselves do not recognise the caste system. The fact that Sikhism was referred to in the 1950 Order and Buddhism in the 1990 amendment might be a reflection of the ground realities and social transformations, particularly the large-scale conversion to other religions, being recognised by the legislature.

The 1930 Order, on the other hand, could have been an attempt by the British to provide a distinct identity to the Indian Christians, transcending the cultural contours of Hinduism, but without realising the later-day ramifications associated with religious conversion.  

The judgment by the AP High Court, for its part, seems to have overlooked these historical dichotomies. Missed in the process was a timely opportunity to change the traditional interpretation of the Atrocities Act and the 1950 Order and to examine whether the application of the Atrocities Act needs to be revisited.

The Court do not seem to have given enough consideration to the fact that abuses were hurled at the victim and his family in the name of their caste. Such actions invariably underline the deep prejudice against some castes and should be treated as a hate crime as well.

The Court could have taken the opportunity to prosecute the accused, citing community rights of the members of the Scheduled Caste, as this alleged crime was seemingly driven by deep prejudices against a person with a particular social lineage.

In this case, the Court could also have used its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution, where the High Courts have the power to issue certain writs.

Article 226 (1) reads as follows,

“Notwithstanding anything in Article 32, every High Court shall have power, throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction, to issue to any person or authority, including in appropriate cases, any Government, within those territories directions, orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari, or any of them, for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by Part III and for any other purpose.”

It is to be noted that the High Courts may issue orders, directions or writs for the enforcement of rights under Part III of the Constitution. Article 14 of the Constitution not only guarantees the Equality before the law but also guarantees the equal protection of laws. Some castes have endured many historical injustices, and the same needs to be corrected in society.

Thus, it is important to have legislation like the Atrocities Act. The Court could have issued appropriate directions in the interest of the protection of the rights of communities which have endured such injustice.

As said by HM Seervai, Article 226 provides wide powers to the High Courts, where it is an effective way to protect and enforce the fundamental rights as well as the constitutional rights, although it does not provide for a fundamental right akin to Article 32 to approach the Court.

The High Court, in this case, could have used its wide powers to protect the interests of the Scheduled Castes. Just because the victim has converted to another religion, the Court should not have denied him protection from historic atrocities he was subjected to, especially when there was general acceptance that the caste of the person does not change with a change in religion, as the former is linked to birth rather than faith.

The culture of atrocities and violence

Atrocities against the members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, apart from cases of untouchability, continue to remain an essential feature of India’s social fibre. The Prevention of Atrocities Act was promulgated in response to some of the most egregious attacks on the Scheduled Castes.

One such example is the Kilvenmani Massacre of 25 December 1968, where 44 Dalit farm labourers were burnt alive by the local landlord’s men in the Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu. The massacre was stated to be in retaliation for the killing of an agent of the landlord, who lost his life during a clash with farm labourers demanding higher wages.

The irony of this case, which is seen as one of the most gruesome acts of organised violence against Dalits in independent India, is that the Madras High Court acquitted all the accused of the massacre.

The preamble of the Atrocities Act states that it intends to prevent the commission of any atrocities against the members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The preamble also provides for relief for the victims of such offences.

In the Statement of Objects and Reasons, it is stated that the legislation was being made in order to supplement it with civil rights due to the serious crimes committed against them, including the dishonour caused to the women due to the caste prejudices.

Some of the considerations that prompted the urgency of this act include the case of a Dalit being forced to eat human excreta, the case of a Dalit bridegroom not allowed to ride a horse, and the forceful disposition of land, among others.

The Atrocities Act is seen as one of the most meticulously framed legislations in the country. Although well-drafted, the act has been rendered moot in many instances due to numerous related discrepancies.

The registration of a case under the act is itself a huge task for the victim. Investigations, allegedly, are not undertaken fairly, also thanks to a policing system where marginalised communities continue to be under-represented. The criminal justice system is also seen to have failed in ensuring proper trials and timely dispensation of justice. 

It is also glaring to note that even after the trials, most of the accused are acquitted or evade incarceration due to a lack of evidence, despite the gravity of the crimes. For example, in the Tsunduru Massacre of 1991 in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, it took 16 years for the Special Court to render its judgement.

In Chidipudi Srinivasa Reddy and Ors. v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2014), a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court acquitted all the 56 convicted persons in the case. The case is now pending before the Supreme Court, even after 34 years of the grave incident.

Karamchedu, Tsunduru and many more…

On 17 July 1985, in a village named Karamchedu in the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, a chain of events took place that led to a gruesome massacre of Dalits.  

A man from the upper-caste Kamma caste was cleaning his buffalo in a local tank, which was being polluted. It was from this tank that water was drawn by the local Dalits. When the man was confronted by a boy and a woman, he beat up both with a tight rope that is used to tame buffalos. In defence, the Dalit woman caught hold of the rope and returned the beating.

A local Dalit man intervened to stop the fight, and both sides soon reached a compromise.

Five days later, a group of 3,000 caste-Hindu men launched an organised attack, which led to the death of six Dalit men and raping of 3 of their women. The gravity of this organised violence and the audacity with which it was conducted sent shockwaves across the nation.

This led to the civil liberties movement in Andhra Pradesh taking a new direction. Whereas it was initially thought that the civil liberties only dealt with the repression by the state, the Karamchedu massacre mobilised civil liberty movements against social evils like untouchability and hate crimes.

This massacre was particularly intriguing as one of the persons believed to have instigated this massacre, Daggubati Chenchu Ramaiah, was the brother-in-law of the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, N. T. Rama Rao. Accordingly, it was alleged that the trial was not coming to an end due to the influential persons involved in this case.

The carnage caused huge outrage in the whole country and led to the formation of the Dalit Mahasabha by activists like K. Padma Rao and Bojja Tharakam, who later became the Public Prosecutor in the Tsundur case.

The legal proceedings took several twists and turns, including the reported killing of a Dalit woman who was the main witness to the massacre. According to a description by activist Balagopal, over 92 persons were charge sheeted in the case while the trial court convicted 55 people in 1994.

Some reports point out that an Ongole district court had initially sentenced 159 people to life imprisonment, which was struck down by the AP High Court. The case was transferred to the Guntur district from Prakasam district, which itself was then seen as a controversial move.

Eventually, the final verdict was given by the Supreme Court only in 2008, over 23 years after the massacre, in State of Andhra Pradesh v. Rayaneedi Sitharamaiah and Ors., sentencing the main accused to life imprisonment and three years for the other 30 accused.

Earlier, the banned People’s War Group had allegedly killed Daggubati Chenchu Ramaiah, one of the main accused, in 1987, either in vengeance for the massacre or the inordinate delay caused by the State in the trial. Only five PWG members were listed as the accused, with one of them passing away during the trial and three others being acquitted by the trial court in 2013.

The Tsunduru incident, which happened half a decade after the Karamchedu carnage, saw many Dalit men being killed, put into gunny sacks and thrown into a nearby canal. This was one of the first massacres after the passing of the Atrocities Act.

It was mentioned in the proceedings of the Lok Sabha on 13 August 1991 that 20 persons were killed in the massacre. The trial of the case itself took 16 years, during which most of the time the trial was interrupted due to the accused approaching the High Court for various reasons.

Interestingly, a key contention raised by the accused to derail the trial was to claim that the victims were not members of the Scheduled Castes as they had converted to Christianity. The same was then disproved when a local priest of a church gave testimony that they are not part of the Church.

The Special Court was established in Tsunduru village for the expeditious disposal of the case. As mentioned earlier, the AP High Court had acquitted all the accused, while the appeal continues to be pending before the Supreme Court.

Justice still eludes the victims of the massacre, even after 34 years of the carnage.

The long list of cases of atrocities against the members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Andhra Pradesh does not end with the Karamchedu or Tsunduru case. There was the 1987 case of Neerukonda, a village in Guntur District, where a 150-strong mob of upper castes, mostly Kamma youth, assaulted Dalits in the village for carrying out a marriage procession in the streets where the upper castes resided.

The Neerukonda incident was horrifying for two reasons. First, it is said that an agreement existed between the Dalits and the upper caste Hindus that any procession of the Dalits would be constrained only to the streets where they lived, which, in turn, is a violation of the Civil Rights Act, 1952 and Article 17 of the Constitution of India.

Second, Neerukonda village was the native place of the then Health Minister of Andhra Pradesh, M. S. S. Koteswarrao. It was reportedly his close relatives who committed the atrocity. In this incident, one person died and five were injured.

Another disturbing incident was in 1996 in the village of Venkatayapalem in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, which involved a legislator who was supposed to protect all sections of the citizenry. The sitting MLA, Thota Trimurthulu, tonsured two Dalits and assaulted three Dalits as they were working for an adversary Bahujan Samaj Party candidate.

It is also glaring to note that the MLA was part of all three major parties, viz., the Telugu Desam Party (of which he was a member during the incident), the Indian National Congress and the YSR Congress Party (of which he is currently a legislator). It was after 28 years that he was convicted in the case by a Special Court in Visakhapatnam.

Then comes the case of Laxmipeta in 2012, where 5 Dalits were killed by upper castes, apparently as part of their attempt to preserve their monopoly over land and other privileges.

If the incidents narrated above were mostly of South India, mainly Andhra Pradesh, the attacks on Dalits were more gruesome in Bihar, where the dreaded Ranvir Sena, mainly an upper caste militia, had reigned with horror and terror for decades. These include the Bathani Tola Massacre of 1996, in which 21 Dalits were killed and the Laxmanpur Bathe Massacre of 1997, in which 58 Dalits were killed.

The Khairlanji massacre of 2006 in Maharashtra, where a whole Dalit family was brutally killed, only adds to this long list of organised violence against Dalits across the nation, many decades after independence.

No end to caste fury

The situation in this country remains so appalling that even 40 years after the Karamchedu massacre. As India’s tryst with caste violence continues, prejudices against Dalits remain potent without showing any signs of consummate assimilation with what the forward sections claim to be the ‘mainstream.’

In light of the incidents discussed above, it is clear that mere enactment of the laws and measures has not changed the plight of the Dalits in India. Even though Article 17 of the Constitution – Abolition of Untouchability – exists, atrocities against Dalits persist in various forms, both latent and patent.

The premise that education and access to public employment have drastically transformed the condition of the historically marginalised groups and have enabled them to achieve social mobility primarily seems to be a misnomer. It is a known fact that educational advancement has not provided a commensurate value addition in the social strata or various walks of life, particularly in the vehicles of economic growth and progress.

The plight of converted Dalits has aggravated as they continue to be subjected to atrocities and social discrimination in the name of the caste of their birth or family lineage, even while being denied the benefits of affirmative action. That they are also prone to increasing instances of hate crime, particularly from right-wing groups, is not an understatement in the current political milieu.

The author shall discuss the situation and plight of the converted Dalits in Part II of this series, which will also include recommendations in relation to atrocities and discussions on the instant case.

(Views expressed are the author's own.)