Plea alleging violence against Christians: Supreme Court asks UoI to file collated reply by April 14
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.
While refusing to issue notices to states where incidents of violence against Christians are allegedly high, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Central Government to file a reply in the plea seeking directions from the Top Court to stop violence against Christians in the country.
Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the petitioners, told Court yesterday that there was an exponential rise in attacks against Christians since last year.
"In Chhattisgarh alone 600 attacks, PUCL has come out with a report... Christians are being attacked, and then FIRs are registered against them only..", Gonsalves told a bench comprising CJI Chandrachud along with Justices Pardiwala and Narasimha.
Court was further told that the Christians who were arrested, were not even getting bail.
"Hate speech is exploding now...rallies are taking place in Chhattisgarh and UP, the nodal officers created as per Tehseen Poonawalla judgment are not registering any FIRs...", the Court was further told.
"What is the compliance by nodal officers?", CJI then asked ASG Aishwarya Bhati.
"It is easy to make these sweeping statements.. we have just got the data from the states, we can submit out reply in two weeks.", the ASG replied.
Hearing this, the CJI ordered thus, "lets have the affidavit from the Ministry and then we can develop the issue thereafter... List on April 14, exactly after two weeks..".
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.