The Patna High Court has granted anticipatory bail to an appellant accused under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 2015, observing that the dispute appeared to be “purely civil in nature” and the allegations regarding casteist slurs were not shown to have occurred in public view. Justice Sanjay Kumar Singh set aside the order of the lower court which had rejected the pre-arrest bail, reaffirming that the bar under Section 18 of the SC/ST Act is not absolute if a prima facie case is not made out.

Case Background

The matter, titled Lal Babu Yadav @ Lal Kishore Yadav vs. The State of Bihar (Criminal Appeal (SJ) No. 1108 of 2025), arose from a First Information Report (FIR) registered at the Bhojpur SC/ST Police Station (Case No. 25 of 2024).

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