Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar said at the Inter State Council meeting on Saturday that work has begun on a plan to rid the country of atrocities on Dalits and tribals by 2010. She also suggested a plethora of steps to ensure speedy justice and punishment to perpetrators of crime. Expressing concern that acts of violence against Scheduled Castes were on the rise, Kumar argued for an annual judicial review to assess the pendency of cases and number of acquittals. She also requested Home Minister Shivraj Patil that incidents of violence against the lower castes be passed on to her ministry on an institutional basis.

Echoing Kumar at the conclave was Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers Ram Vilas Paswan who proposed that a prime minister’s trophy be given every year to the state where no incidents were reported. To ensure expedition of pending cases, he explained the merits of having “exclusive courts” instead of the present system of special courts.

The tenth meeting of the Inter State Council was held in the backdrop of a Dalit backlash in Maharashtra, following the desecration of an Ambedkar statue in Kanpur. The Congress-led UPA government is worried over the negative fallout of the movement, especially since Assembly polls in four states including Uttar Pradesh are scheduled early next year.

Referring to reports of FIRs not being registered in some cases, Shivraj Patil pointed out that some states were lagging behind in the implementation of the existing laws like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. He made a case for amending the law that would enable a copy of the FIR to be sent to magistrates for record, while saying that it has come to the notice of the ministry, that police, in some instances, have refused to take up cases under the Act and instead preferred investigation under the provisions of the penal code.

The chief ministers and lieutenant governors who attended the meeting agreed to the suggestion of having exclusive special courts and special prosecutors to ensure speedy investigation and disposal of cases in a time bound manner, even as they were urged by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to usher in effective measures to prevent harassment of the communities.