Jodhpur, Feb. 8 -- The Rajasthan high court on Saturday quashed criminal charges under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur, while allowing police to continue their probe into allegations of assault against him. The bench of justice Sandeep Shah partially approved assistant professor Deepak Arora's petition seeking quashing of the FIR lodged against him in September 2025, which alleged that he attempted to assault institute director, professor Avinash Aggarwal inside the latter's office. The FIR alleged that when staff including an employee belonging to a scheduled caste background, intervened, Arora attacked them and hurled caste-based abuse at them. The bench took issue with the idea of the usage of a particular term being registered as grounds for a caste atrocity case. "This Court is of the view that the simpliciter use of the word 'Neech' would not amount to use of caste name so as to bring home the offence under Section 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act. 'Neech' essentially means despicable, low and is often used to describe someone with poor moral character. Thus, the word cannot be associated with a particular community or a caste," said the bench. "The use of the word 'neech'/despicable/lowly would not amount to using a caste name and thus in the present case the necessary ingredients of offence punishable under Section 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act are missing," it added. htc...