Centre moves SC to hold PIL petitioner guilty for giving false and fabricated evidence

The Centre has moved the Supreme Court seeking to hold a PIL petitioner guilty of giving false and fabricated evidence in the 2009 killing of tribal villagers in Chhattisgarh to change the narrative of the incident.

The Centre has moved the Supreme Court seeking to hold a PIL petitioner guilty of giving false and fabricated evidence in the 2009 killing of tribal villagers in Chhattisgarh to change the narrative of the incident. The petition has been moved in connection with the killings of around a dozen villagers in the Dantewada district as a part of the anti-Naxal operation in 2009. After the incident, a petition was filed by human rights activist Himanshu Kumar and others alleging that the kin of the victims, who filed the earlier petition in the apex court, was allegedly abducted by the Chhattisgarh Police. Kumar in his petition had alleged that a 28-year-old key witness of the killing, Sodi Sambo, who was undergoing treatment for a bullet wound, was last seen in Delhi at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The apex court in 2010 had directed a Delhi District judge to record the statements of the petitioners. A copy of the statements was made available to the Centre only in March 2022 after repeated requests. A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and A S Oka asked the PIL petitioner to file a reply in the matter and posted the matter for hearing on April 28. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared in the matter in which the Centre claimed in its plea that after examining the statements, it has found shocking aberrations and fabrications in the statements of the petitioners and they were found to be ''ex facie false, fabricated and deceitful.'' It submitted that false averments were made with a malafide objective to portray the left-wing extremists as ''innocent tribal victims being massacred by security forces.'' ''It is submitted that the modus adopted in the instant case, has over the period of time, become a norm where false petitions are filed by individuals and organisation who are either supporters of Left Wing Extremism or benefit, financially or politically, from Left Wing Extremist activities and protective orders are obtained from the courts by playing fraud,'' the plea said.

The plea alleged that the sole objective of the petitioner, in this case, was to derail the security forces from their ongoing efforts to neutralise left-wing extremism.

The plea has also sought directions to CBI/NIA or any other central agency to probe individuals and organisations who have been abetting and conspiring to file petitions in court to deter security forces from acting against the Naxal militia.