India Tomorrow Desk
NEW DELHI–In a significant development, the Supreme Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh administration to refund all ‘recoveries’ made through recovery notices issued by the Yogi Adityanath government for damages caused to public property during the protests against the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act in 2019.
The Supreme Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to refund the complete amount collected after the recovery notices that were issued to purported anti-CAA protestors were withdrawn by the state, following criticism by the top court.
The Uttar Pradesh government Friday told the Supreme Court that it has withdrawn 274 recovery notices and proceedings initiated against anti-CAA protestors.
The Supreme Court on Friday said that if the notices have been withdrawn, the due procedure has to be followed. “If an attachment is done against the law and the orders have been recalled, how can the attachment be allowed to go on,” the court asked.
On February 11, the top court had pulled up the UP government for acting on the recovery notices issued to the alleged anti-CAA protestors in December 2019 and gave one final opportunity to it to withdraw the proceedings and warned that it will quash the proceedings for being in violation of the law.
Additional Advocate General for Uttar Pradesh urged the Supreme Court to not pass the order to refund as the recovery ran into crores of Rupees and would show as if the entire process carried out by the administration was illegal.
However, the Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and Surya Kant, did not heed the request and asked them to approach the tribunal to follow proper procedure for issuance of notice.
The government order to seize the properties of the purported protesters was issued on December 21, 2019. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said on December 19, 2019, that those involved in the violence will have to pay for the damage to public properties. “We will attach their properties because many faces have been identified through the video footage,” he had said.
In addition to the recoveries, posters of alleged rioters were also pasted at various places in the state.
