Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Feb 18: In view of the 2019 proceedings, the Supreme Court on Friday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to restore crores of rupees collected from Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protestors.
The apex court’s decision came in response to the Yogi Adityanath government’s claim that it had withdrawn 274 recovery orders and actions against anti-CAA activists for damage to public and private property in 2019.
The state government will refund the whole amount obtained from the alleged protestors, said the bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant. The state government, on the other hand, is free to proceed against demonstrators under the new Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private Property Act, which was notified on August 31, 2020.
The judge turned down additional advocate general Garima Prashad’s request that the protestors and the state government be permitted to file a claim with the claim tribunal instead of directing refunds.
The UP government was pulled by the Supreme Court on February 11 for acting on the recovery letters issued to accused anti-CAA protestors in December 2019 and was given one more chance to dismiss the proceedings, failing which it was threatened with quashing for being in violation of the law.
It had stated that the procedures started in December 2019 were in violation of Supreme Court precedent and could not be upheld.
The Supreme Court was hearing a petition filed by Parwaiz Arif Titu seeking to have notifications given to accused demonstrators by the district administration to recover losses caused by damage to public property during the anti-CAA agitations in Uttar Pradesh quashed, and ordered the state to respond.
According to the complaint, such warnings were issued to a person who died six years ago at the age of 94, as well as a number of others, including two people over the age of 90.
