Report by lawyers, rights groups self-serving and sponsored: Tripura to SC on fact-finding report on last year’s violence

The state government said it was highlighting the “selective outrage” of the petitioners “not… as a defence, but to satisfy” the court “that under the garb of ‘public interest’, the august forum” of the court “is used for apparently oblique purpose”.

The affidavit also alleged that public interest litigation (PIL) was being misused. It said that since the court “stopped exercising jurisdiction based on mere newspaper reports, a new device is found to be adopted… Either a pre-planned and planted article started emerging in a few tabloids which becomes the basis of the PIL subsequently or such so-called ‘public-spirited’ send their own teams to generate a self-serving report”, which “thereafter becomes the cause of action as well as ‘material’ based upon which targeted petitions are filed under the nomenclature of” PILs.

The affidavit was filed in response to a plea by lawyer Ehtesham Hashmi, who was one of the members of the team that drew up the fact-finding report titled ‘Humanity Under Attack in Tripura — #Muslim Lives Matter’. Hashmi’s Twitter bio refers to him as Supreme Court lawyer and member of AICC Legal Cell (SC).

Hashmi’s petition said he was constrained to approach the court to seek its urgent intervention “in respect of a series of hate crimes that took place between 13.10.2021 and 27.10.2021 in Tripura” He contended that despite the gravity and magnitude of the incidents, no concrete steps were taken by the state police against the alleged miscreants and rioters.

Denying the allegations, the state said the report “is a unilateral, exaggerated and distorted version of incidents… and has no veracity in the eyes of law”. The affidavit said “the situation in the… state has all along been under control of the law enforcing machinery”.

The affidavit also pointed out that the Tripura High Court had already taken suo motu cognisance of the incidents, and the matter is pending before it. The state government said the petitioners could approach the high court if they wanted.

The state also referred to the Supreme Court recently rejecting a plea seeking its intervention to check violence during the recent West Bengal municipal elections and directing the petitioners to approach the Kolkata High Court.

The state government also said it had been diligently performing its constitutional obligations of protecting life and property of citizens. In response to last year’s violence, the state’s affidavit said, 27 people have been arrested so far and 157 persons/organisations have been served with notices.