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While referring to the incidents of communal targeting as cited by the petitioner, the Centre has informed the Top Court that most of such incidents have been falsely projected and there has been no violation of fundamental rights, as alleged.
The Central government has informed the Top Court that on a preliminary ascertainment of truthfulness of the assertions as alleged in the petition seeking directions to stop violence against Christians in the country, it has been found that the petitioner has resorted to falsehood and some selective self-serving documents.
The writ petition filed by Rev. Dr. Peter Machado of National Solidarity Forum, Rev. Vijayesh Lal of Evangelical Fellowship of India and others, seeks directions to stop the violence against the members of Christian community in the country.
The affidavit of the Centre filed through P Venukuttan Nair, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi, states that 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.
"...incidents of minor disputes, where no religious/communal angle existed, had also been published in the self serving Reports as instances of violence against Christians...", Top Court has been informed.
The reports seem to be based on misleading and self-serving data being compiled by certain organisations, the central government has submitted. It has further added that a preliminary factual check and inputs received thereof further indicate that in any alleged crime, wherein the victim practiced the particular religion, the reports have sought to assume a communal reason behind the same without even ascertainment of basic facts.
" .... said reports, which form the basis of the present petition, seek to portray any and all criminal incidents, in case where the victim party was of a particular religion, as incidents of violence against the victim due to religious reasons without there being any factual basis behind such presumption", the affidavit reads.
Referring to the Evangelical Fellowship of India-Religious Liberty Commission/EFI-RLC’s self-serving report titled ‘Hate and targeted violence against Christians in India, 2021’, which forms a part of the petition, the Centre has informed the court that a preliminary factual check of the mentioned incidents and the inputs received thereof revealed that in the said report, about 162 incidents were not truthfully recorded and the remaining 139 were either false or deliberated projected wrongfully as instances of targeted violence against Christians.
The said report is also said to have shown family feuds and private land disputes as communal targetting.
The Top Court has been further told that there is a recent trend that certain organisations start planting articles and preparing self-serving reports themselves or through their associates, which eventually become the basis of a writ petition / PIL which is hazardous and defeats the very object as to why PIL jurisdiction was originated by it.
Citing such self-serving actions of the petitioners, Centre has argued that it is the requirement of the law that before seeking any writ of the Supreme Court, a factual foundation as to the violation of fundamental rights in question ought to be established before the court.
Case Title: MOST REV. DR. PETER MACHADO AND ORS. vs. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.
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