No offence under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is made out if the alleged casteist abuse happened inside a private house, the Supreme Court has ruled.A bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice NV Anjaria on Monday quashed a case under the Act against a four persons from Delhi, including two women, accused of hurling caste-based abuses upon a person belonging to the Scheduled Caste inside the four walls of a house.“For an offence to be made out under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act, as is the question in the instant case, the requirement that the occurrence has to be ‘in a place within public view’ is not satisfied, is missing and absent,” the bench said, quashing the FIR against the accused.The FIR in question was registered against the accused persons on allegations that they attempted to break open the complainant’s house lock and made casteist slurs against him and his wife. Interestingly, the complainant and two of the accused were real brothers belonging to the Scheduled Caste, while the wives of the accused belonged to non-SC/ST communities.The trial court framed charges against one of the accused under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act along with charges under Section 506 read with Section 34 of the IPC against all the accused. The Delhi High Court refused to quash the charges, forcing them to approach the top court.Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Anjaria said “…to make out the offence under Section 3(1)(r) and/or Section 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act, the occurrence of the incident and the act and conduct of hurling of caste-based abuses must take place at “a place within public view”.”The top court sought to emphasise that it must be a place within the public gaze. Even if it happens to be a private place, then in such eventuality a public-eye must have an access to be able to notice what happens there or what is taking place that will only make the “place within public view”, it added.“The incident to become an offence under the SC/ST Act must have happened ‘in a place within public view’, is in a way, a principal requirement amongst the other ingredients. The other aspects namely ‘intentional insult or intimidation’ and ‘an intent to humiliate’, gathers a kind of intensity when the insult, intimidation, humiliation or abusive utterances, as the case may be, takes place in ‘a place within public view’, in the presence of members of the public,” it noted.