The Supreme Court on Friday chastised the Uttar Pradesh government for issuing recovery notices for damages caused to public property during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December 2019, before it had passed a law on the subject in 2021, saying they were in violation of court guidelines.
The fact that these notices were adjudicated by Additional District Magistrates (ADMs) rather than judicial personnel, as required by the apex court, drew the ire of a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Surya Kant.
“You have become complainant, you have become adjudicator, and then you are attaching property of the accused,” Justice Surya Kant told UP Additional Advocate General Garima Prashad. “When we had directed that adjudication has to be done by a judicial officer, how is ADM conducting proceedings?” asked Justice Chandrachud.
The court was referring to its 2009 decision that the claims commissioner, who will estimate damages and examine liability in such cases, shall be a judge. In a 2018 judgement, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this.
On Friday, the court said that UP will have to show “how did ADMs supervise these notices prior to the legislation” and added that “you have to show that notices issued before the Act were not in contravention to Supreme Court directions”.
“We will quash these notices and then you are at liberty to take action as per the new Act. Proceedings, which are pending, will be under the new law. You tell us next Friday what you want to do and we will close this matter for orders,” the bench said.
“You have to follow the due process under the law. Please examine this, we are giving one opportunity till February 18,” said the bench.
“This is just a suggestion. This plea concerns only a set of notices sent in December 2019, in relation to one kind of agitation or protest. You can withdraw them with a stroke of a pen…236 notices in a big state like UP is not a big thing. If you are not going to listen, then be ready to face the consequences. We will tell you how Supreme Court judgments need to be followed,” said Justice Surya Kant.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Parwaiz Arif Titu in January 2020, seeking to have notifications sent to accused anti-CAA demonstrators by district administrations quashed in order to recover losses incurred by damage to public property during the protests. The notification, according to the suit, was in contravention of Supreme Court rulings from 2009 and 2018.
Prashad, the Additional Advocate General of Uttar Pradesh, cited a 2011 Government Order establishing Claim Tribunals. However, the Supreme Court panel noted that the Allahabad High Court had condemned this in 2011, after which the state committed to pass a law, which took eight to nine years.
Prashad told the court that in 2021, the state passed the Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private Property Act, which had a provision that saved previous verdicts. She stated that following the Act, all matters were referred to tribunals established under it, which were led by retired District Judges.
Prashad stated that actions against rioters have been ongoing since 2011, and that if the court dismisses the notices, all those who have been sentenced will seek relief as well.
But Justice Chandrachud said: “We are not concerned with other proceedings. We are concerned with only the notices, which have been sent in December 2019, during the CAA protests. You cannot bypass our orders. How can you appoint ADMs, when we had said it should be by judicial officers. Whatever proceedings were conducted in December 2019 was contrary to the law laid down by this court.”
In a two-part investigation last month, The Indian Express examined 46 such recovery orders issued by the Additional District Magistrate (Lucknow East) and discovered a pattern in which the administration acted not only as prosecutor but also as judge and jury to assess damage, estimate cost, bring charges, and fix liability, with many of the accused not even getting a hearing.
In Kanpur, the probe discovered 15 households, largely of daily wage earners ranging from a tonga driver to a milkman, who paid the district administration Rs 13,476 each for their alleged role in the protests. None of them knew how their share of the payout was calculated.
Former IPS officer S R Darapuri and Congress leader Sadaf Jafar, who were among those served with ADM (Lucknow East) recovery orders, applauded the Supreme Court's comments.
Both of them were among the 46 people who were granted recovery orders for the same sum — Rs 64.37 lakh — based on the "doctrine of joint and multiple liability," as the ADM put it. Both of them had denied being present at the protests.
Jafar, who is contesting the UP polls from Lucknow (Central), described the notices as “illegal and unconstitutional”. Darapuri said: “The procedure followed by the UP government to serve notices to us was against the apex court guidelines. I am glad the court has established the rule of law, and I am hoping that it will soon quash the proceedings on its own when the matter is heard next.”