Supreme Court asks Union Home Ministry to collect reports from eight States on ‘attacks on Christians’

Bench clarifies it has not formed any opinion on the veracity of the allegations by petitioners

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to obtain from eight States information about the registration of FIRs, status of investigation, arrests and chargesheets filed in incidents petitioners allege to be attacks targeting the Christian community and institutions.

The eight States in question are Bihar, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Also Read | SC says ‘no’ to plea seeking board to watch Christian missionaries’ activities

These States have to verify the action taken by their law enforcement agencies on the incidents of "criminal wrongdoings" which happened in 2021, as alleged in the petitions filed by Rev. Dr. Peter Machado of National Solidarity Forum, Rev. Vijayesh Lal of Evangelical Fellowship of India and others. The States have to submit their verification reports to the Ministry, which would in turn file an affidavit in the Supreme Court.

A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said the verification exercise was necessary for the court to determine whether the directions issued by the apex court in a host of judgments, notably in the Tehseen Poonawalla case, were being followed by the States. These judgments had made the State machinery accountable for preventing or taking immediate criminal action against perpetrators of communal violence, including lynchings.

In this case, the Bench clarified that it merely wanted the allegations in the petitions to be verified and it had "not formed any opinion on the veracity of the allegations".

The court directed the petitioners, represented by senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, to share the details of each of the alleged incidents mentioned in the petitions with the office of the Solicitor General of India in four weeks.