Centre questions Zakir Naik's plea to club FIRs, calls him a fugitive

The Centre on Wednesday questioned before the Supreme Court the maintainability of a plea filed by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik seeking clubbing of FIRs filed in different states over his purported statements during the Ganapati festival in 2012. Appearing before a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka, Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Augustine George Masih, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta asked how a person who was declared a fugitive, file a plea under Article 32 of the Constitution. "I was told by his advocate that they are withdrawing the matter. Our counter was ready," said Mehta. The lawyer representing Naik said he hadn't received any such instruction to withdraw the matter and the plea sought clubbing of about 43 cases registered across states. The counsel further said there were six FIRs pending against his client and he would move the high court for quashing of the same. Following the submissions, the top court directed Naik's counsel to file an affidavit stating whether he