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Synopsis

In a plea seeking directions from the Top Court to stop violence against Christians in the country, a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli today directed the Ministry of Home Affairs to obtain verification report from a few states on the steps that have been taken in the cases of violence.

These states are Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Haryana, Bihar and Orissa.

The states have been asked to ensure that information is given on aspects like registration of FIR, stage of investigation, arrests made and if chargesheet has been filed.

While directing that the said exercise be carried out in two months' time and report be filed before Court, the bench added, "This exercise will help court to ascertain if the directions of Tehseen Poonawalla case has been complied with."

Justice Chandrachud also clarified that at the present stage, the Court will not form any opinion on the veracity of the allegations made in the petition.

Recently, the Central government had filed their counter affidavit in the case stating that on a preliminary ascertainment of truthfulness of the assertions as alleged in the petition it had found that the petitioner resorted to falsehood and some selective self-serving documents.

The petitioners have claimed to base the petition on information gathered through sources like press reports (the Wire, the Scroll, the Hindustan Times, Dainik Bhaskar, etc.), “independent” online databases and from findings of various non-profit organisations, but enquiries reveal that majority of the incidents alleged as Christian persecution in these reports were either false or wrongfully projected, Centre had further told Court.

When the court took up the matter today, Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves appearing for the petitioners told Court, "We are not just relying on reports, but we have actually contacted individual victims."

Justice Chandrachud then asked Senior Advocate Gonsalves that how such cases of violence be classified.

"There may be an act of violence against a person belonging to a particular community, but how do you know the attack was because of that person belonging to a particular community...", asked Justice Chandrachud.

SG Tushar Mehta at this juncture told court that now petitions are filed on basis of tabloid reports which refer to articles that are consolidated by a fact-finding committee made for this specific purpose.

"Some of the articles referred to by the petitioner have surfaced right before this plea was supposed to be filed", SG added.

Rather than using self-serving data to invoke this court's extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 32, the petitioner should provide legal help to these victims, the SG said.

Senior Advocate Gonsalves, while addressing court, referred to various incidents of violence where allegedly pastors were beaten up, churches were vandalised.

Thus, while asking the Ministry to carry out a verification exercise, Court remarked that some data should be collected to allow it to separate the grain from chaff.

Case Title: MOST REV. DR. PETER MACHADO AND ORS. vs. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.