SC allows Centre to file preliminary reply to PIL over alleged attacks on Christian institutions

That framework has surprisingly worked very well in different States, Gonsalves said.On July 28, the top court had taken serious exception to the targeting of judges and expressed displeasure over news reports that it was delaying hearing a plea alleging increasing attacks on Christian institutions and priests across the country.Give us a break, a bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud had said, adding that Last time the matter could not be taken because I was down with Covid.

New Delhi, Aug 5 (PTI)The Supreme Court Friday allowed the Centre to file a preliminary response to a plea alleging the rising number of attacks on Christian institutions and priests across the country and seeking implementation of its guidelines to curb hate crimes.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and JB Pardiwala told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that the top court had laid a framework in 2018 in the Tehseen Poonawala case in which nodal officers were directed to be appointed to check incidents of lynching, and it would like similar arrangements in place.

''As a framework has been already laid down by this court, what we are concerned here is that the same framework is being followed by different States'', the bench told Mehta.

The Solicitor General said that he would like to file a preliminary response to the PIL. The bench posted the matter for hearing after a week.

At the outset, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the petitioner, said that in 2021 over 500 incidents of attack on Christian institutions have been reported. ''We want that the framework which was placed by the top court in the Tehseen Poonawala case in 2010 could be placed with a little bit of tweaking. That framework has surprisingly worked very well in different States'', Gonsalves said.

On July 28, the top court had taken serious exception to the targeting of judges and expressed displeasure over news reports that it was delaying hearing a plea alleging increasing attacks on Christian institutions and priests across the country.

''Give us a break'', a bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud had said, adding that ''Last time the matter could not be taken because I was down with Covid. You get it published in newspapers that the Supreme Court is delaying the hearing. Look, there is a limit to which you can target the judges. Who supplies all this news? ''The news I saw online was that judges are delaying the hearing. Give us a break. One of the judges is down with Covid and this is the reason we could not take the matter. Anyway, we will list it otherwise there will be another news item,'' the bench had observed orally.

The remarks were made after the petitioner's counsel had sought a hearing of the case.

Gonsalves had earlier mentioned the matter for early hearing and said that on average, 45 to 50 violent attacks take place against Christian institutions and priests across the country every month.

In May this year itself, 57 cases of violence and attacks on Christian institutions and priests took place, Gonsalves had told the court.

The relief sought in the plea filed by Peter Machado and others includes the implementation of the guidelines issued by the apex court in the Tehseen Poonawala judgement, under which nodal officers were to be appointed to take note of hate crimes across the country and register FIRs.

In 2018, the apex court had come out with a slew of guidelines for the Centre and the states. These included fast-tracked trials, victim compensation, deterrent punishment, and disciplinary action against lax law-enforcing officials.

The court had said offences such as hate crimes, cow vigilantism, and lynching incidents should be nipped in the bud.

''The states shall designate a senior police officer, not below the rank of police superintendent as nodal officer in each district,'' it had said, adding that these officers will set up a task force to be assisted by a DSP-rank officer for taking measures to prevent mob violence and lynching.

''The state governments shall immediately identify the districts, sub-divisions, and villages where instances of lynching and mob violence have been reported in the recent past,'' the court had said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)