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The Supreme Court on 22 September 2026 dismissed a PIL filed by 19 people led by Brijbhushan Saini challenging the constitutional validity of key provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, holding that safeguards laid down in its own 2020 Prathviraj Chauhan judgment were sufficient to prevent misuse. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, said the 2018 amendment inserting Section 18A, which dispensed with a preliminary inquiry before an FIR and prior approval for arrest while barring anticipatory bail, had already been upheld in 2020, and that instances of misuse could be addressed separately without doubting the Act's constitutional validity. The petitioners had argued that Section 18A was being widely misused and conflicted with the credible information test under Section 35 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.