The Centre on Thursday disputed in the Supreme Court the figure pertaining to alleged attacks on Christian institutions and priests, terming the data “wrong” and claiming the petitioners wanted to keep “the pot boiling” to sully the image of the country abroad. The apex court was hearing a PIL filed by Rev. Peter Machado of the National Solidarity Forum, Rev. Vijayesh Lal of Evangelical Fellowship of India, and others claiming violence against Christians.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud was earlier told by the PIL petitioners that from 2021 to May 2022, 700 cases of violence against Christians were reported and a majority of those arrested were followers of the faith.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, referred to a report containing the case data received from Bihar and Chhattisgarh and said most of them related to disputes involving neighbours and, coincidentally, one of the parties happened to be a Christian.
He said the Bench, also including Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala, had taken note of the matter based on the figures provided by the PIL petitioners which were wrong. “The petitioner claimed that there are some 500 incidents where Christians were attacked. We sent everything to the State Governments. We collated all the information we got. The figure given by them, which obviously persuaded your lordships, was not correct,” said Mehta, citing that Union Home Ministry has collated the responses from all the States. Altogether 38 such incidents were reported from Bihar, and as per the report, they pertained to fights between two neighbours of whom one happened to be a Christian.