Allahabad High Court Dismisses Plea Against Notices to Anti-CAA Protesters

The Allahabad high court dismissed a petition on Monday that challenged the recovery notices served on the anti-citizenship amendment act (CAA) protesters for allegedly damaging public property.  The Lucknow bench of the high court said such matters are already sub judice before the Supreme Court so there was no occasion to file the instant petition here.

The order was given by a division bench of Justice Pankaj Kumar Jaiswal and Justice Karunesh Singh Pawar on the writ petition filed by a protester, Mohammad Kaleem. The petitioner had challenged a notice issued by the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government for the recovery of damages allegedly caused to public property during a recent protest in the city against the CAA.

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The petitioner had stated that the notice was illegal. Opposing the plea, the government counsel submitted that it was a mere notice to which the petitioner should reply before the issuing authority and secondly same matters are pending before the apex court so the petition is not maintainable in the HC.

Allahabad HC pulls up Yogi Adityanath-govt 

Taking cognisance of a complaint filed by a Mumbai-based lawyer alleging that Uttar Pradesh government had acted in an unconstitutional manner to deal with the anti-CAA protesters, the Allahabad High Court on January 9 had issued a notice to the Yogi Adityanath government.

The Bombay High Court lawyer, Ajay Kumar referred to news reports published in The Telegraph and the New York Times on December 29, 2019, and January 2, 2020, respectively, that had observed that the situation in the state was antithetical to the core constitutional values and as such the High Court needed to intervene. Kumar sent an email to HC Chief Justice Govind Mathur demanding the institution of a judicial inquiry and cited news reports to allege that the state police committed atrocities on madarsa students, while they were protesting against the CAA.

Treating the email as public interest litigation (PIL), a division bench comprising Chief Justice Mathur and Justice Vivek Varma sought a reply from the Adityanath government as to why the prayer of the petitioner should not be admitted. 

(With PTI inputs) 

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