On Friday, the Supreme Court ordered the UP government to refund damages recovered from the persons accused of “destroying and damaging public property” while protesting against the CAA [Citizenship Amendment Act].
· Supreme Court asks UP govt to return assets
People involved in this were well over 90 years of age, and it also includes women, students, and activists. All these were accused of damaging public property while protesting against a Citizenship amendment based on religion in the citizenship law.
According to the government’s oral assertion in court, the assets recovered by the State are worth “some crores.”
The blow came shortly just after the State, on the backfoot days after being accused by the apex court of being the “complainant, adjudicator and prosecutor,” informed a Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Surya Kant that it had withdrawn show-cause notices issued by Additional District Magistrates since December 2019 in 274 cases of “alleged destruction of public properties” and subsequent proceedings.
Senior advocate Garima Prashad, the Uttar Pradesh Additional Advocate General, said the cases would now be referred to a claim’s tribunal under the newly enacted Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public-Private Property Act of 2020 for fresh adjudication.
The court highlighted in its order that since the show-cause notices had been withdrawn, “there shall be a refund of any recoveries which have been made in the meantime. However, this will be without prejudice to action that may be warranted in terms of proceedings before and the decision of claims tribunal at a subsequent stage”.
The State asked the court to invoke its extraordinary powers to order status quo, saying the properties could remain as “security” before the tribunal till a final decision was taken on their owners’ culpability.
Edited by- Subbuthai Padma
Published by- Radhika. N
