In an important ruling, Bombay High Court has said that an offence under the Atrocities Act, can be 'compounded'.

Under the Criminal Procedure Code, a court can compound an offence (decide not to conduct prosecution) with the consent of the complainant in minor cases.

However, Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, enacted to prevent caste-related abuse and assaults, does not expressly provide for compounding.

In the case before the court, the complainant, one Akash Wadhmare, was ready to withdraw the case registered under the Atrocities Act at Shivajinagar Police Station in Beed against his neighbour Dhananjay Bahergaonkar in June this year.

Justice A V Potdar of Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court while hearing the case held that even if Atrocities Act is silent on this aspect, offence under it can be compounded.

Wadhmare had filed a complaint saying he was abused with reference to his caste, and assaulted, when he and a friend were crossing the open space belonging to Bahergaonkar.

Bahergaonkar moved the High Court, seeking to quash the case.

But in the meanwhile, in an affidavit, Wadhmare said that since the litigation was going to damage the relationship between neighbours and also between two communities, he was ready to drop the case.

Accepting this, Justice Potdar said in the ruling earlier this week that "if two sects of the society have decided to settle the dispute to maintain harmony between them", then the High Court can grant them relief."

"To secure ends of justice and to maintain harmony between two sects of the society, court can compound the offence," the judge said, quashing the FIR.