Refund Crores Recovered From Anti-CAA Protesters: Supreme Court to Yogi Govt

New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government informed the Supreme Court on Friday that it has dropped 274 recovery notices and procedures issued in 2019 against anti-CAA protestors for the destruction of public and private property.

The state government would refund the whole amount obtained from the accused protestors owing to the proceedings that began in 2019, according to a panel of Justices led by D.Y. Chandrachud and Surya Kant.

It allowed the UP government to use the new Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private Property Act, which was notified on August 31, 2020, to prosecute accused anti-CAA protestors.

The bench turned down Additional Advocate General Garima Prashad's request that protestors and the state government be permitted to file a claim with the claim tribunal instead of receiving refunds.

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The UP government was chastised by the Supreme Court on February 11, 2022, for moving on the recovery notices issued to accused anti-CAA protestors in December 2019 and was given one more chance to drop the proceedings before the court threatened to quash them for being in breach of the law.

It 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 notices sent to alleged protestors by the district administration for the purpose of recovering losses caused by damage to public property during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) agitations in Uttar Pradesh quashed, and the state was asked to respond.

According to the plea, similar letters were delivered in an "arbitrary manner" against a 94-year-old woman who died six years ago, as well as numerous others, including two people over 90.