[Plea Alleging Increased Violence Against Christians] SC directs State of Jharkhand to file verification report in two weeks
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In its counter, while referring to the incidents of communal targeting as cited by the petitioner, the centre had informed the Top Court last year that most of such incidents had been falsely projected and there had been no violation of fundamental rights, as alleged.
The Supreme Court today directed the State of Jharkhand, the only defaulting state, to file its verification report on the steps that have been taken by it, in a plea seeking directions from the Top Court to stop violence against Christians in the country.
When the case was taken up, a CJI Chandrachud led bench was told that the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh had not filed their responses till now.
Counsel for state of Chhattisgarh thus clarified that they had in fact filed a response.
Hearing this, the CJI said, "Okay so only Jharkhand is remaining. We direct the State of Jharkhand to file its report in two weeks time".
When the petitioner made a submission that Chhattisgarh had not responded to the particular allegations made in their plea, the CJI said that the court would have to look at their response to check this.
In February, the Supreme Court had 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."
Justice Chandrachud had also clarified that at the present stage, the Court will not form any opinion on the veracity of the allegations made in the petition.
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.