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On the last date of hearing, the senior counsel had told Court that there was an exponential rise in attacks against Christians since last year.
Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves, today submitted before the Supreme Court that groups/parties aligned to the Central government were attacking the Christian Community across the country.
Gonsalves made this submission while arguing on behalf of the petitioners in a plea seeking seeking directions from the Top Court to stop violence against Christians in the country.
"Please look at the names of the attackers and those who have filed FIRs.. these are all parties/groups aligned to the central government that are attacking us..", Gonsalves said.
The senior counsel further told court that an IA was filed seeking interim reliefs like independent SIT of officials from outside the state, protection for prayer meetings, appointment of Nodal officers as per Tehseen Poonawalla judgment and, NALSA to provide legal aid to the victims.
On the other hand, SG Tushar Mehta told the bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha that action had been taken against hate crimes.
"Kindly look at our counter..we have filed the replies for 8 states.. please see that, then your lordships may decide if this plea is to be heard any further..", ASG Aishwarya Bhati also submitted before Court.
As Justice Narasimha could not get his hands on the rejoinder filed by the petitioner, the bench decided to take up the plea on Friday.
In March this year, while refusing to issue notices to states where incidents of violence against Christians were allegedly high, the Supreme Court had directed the Central Government to file a reply.
The Supreme Court had earlier ordered the defaulting states to file the verification reports after an order was passed in September last year, directing the Ministry of Home Affairs to obtain verification reports from a few states on the steps that had been taken in the alleged cases of violence.
These states were Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Haryana, Bihar and Orissa.
In the earlier order, Supreme Court had asked the states 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 the reports be filed before Court, the bench had added, "This exercise will help court to ascertain if the directions of Tehseen Poonawalla case has been complied with."
Last year, the Central government had filed their counter affidavit in the case stating that on a preliminary ascertainment of the 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 revealed that majority of the incidents alleged as Christian persecution in these reports were either false or wrongfully projected, Centre had further told the court.
Case Title: MOST REV. DR. PETER MACHADO AND ORS. vs. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.
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