The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court there is no merit in the plea alleging increasing attacks on Christians in India and the petitioner has "resorted to falsehood and self-serving documents" along with press reports which have misreported such incidents.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in an affidavit said that as per the inputs it has received, a majority of the incidents cited by the petitioner as attack on Christians were wrongfully projected in news reports.
The petition was filed by a Christian priest Rev. Peter Machado and others seeking to implement guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in 2018 on hate crime cases.
"The petitioners claimed to have based petition on information gathered through sources like press reports (The Wire, The Scroll, Hindustan Times, Dainik Bhaskar, etc.), “independent” online databases and from findings of various non-profit organisations. It is submitted that enquiries reveal that a majority of incidents alleged as Christian persecution in these reports were either false or wrongfully projected," the affidavit said. In some cases, incidents of purely criminal nature and arising out of personal issues, are categorised.
as violence targeting Christians while several incidents, which were found to be true or exaggerated, were not necessarily related to incidents of violence targeting Christians, said MHA in the affidavit, in response to the plea alleging rising number of attacks on Christian institutions and priests across the country.
When the matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Central government, said that the MHA has filed its response. Senior Counsel Colin Gonsalves sought time to file rejoinder. The next hearing is scheduled on August 15.