HC notice on plea for recovery of damages during anti-CAA stir, riots

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notices to relevant authorities in a petition that sought the recovery of damages from people who destroyed public property during the raging protests against the CAA and NRC in Delhi from late 2019 to early 2020, including during the north-east Delhi riots of February 2020.

The Public Interest Litigation was filed by lawyer Hinu Mahajan and law student Amandeep Singh Gehlot and specifically sought the setting up of an independent machinery to solely investigate the damages caused to public property and award compensation related to it.

The plea was listed before the bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla, which has now issued notice to the Union government, through the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Delhi government and the Delhi Police, listing the matter for the next hearing on September 21.

Significantly, the petitioners, represented by Advocate Yudhvir Singh Chauhan, also sought directions to ensure government departments and private persons, whose properties were damaged, are duly compensated for their loss and injuries — by the persons involved in damaging them.

Moreover, the petitioners have submitted that they had given representations to the Union government and the Delhi government seeking recovery of damages from the concerned persons but have not yet received any response from them on

the subject.

While the petitioners had also listed several political parties as respondents, the court has directed that they been deleted from the memo.

The petitioners said they had visited various places of Delhi and were "shocked and saddened" to see the damages caused to public properties during the riots and during the protests — both anti-CAA/NRC and the ones in favour of the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Relying on a 2009 Supreme Court judgment in an Andhra Pradesh case, where guidelines were set out for recovery of damages to public properties during protests, the petitioners submitted, "In such a situation it is desirable to issue writ of or in the nature of mandamus and/or any other appropriate writs, orders or directions, thereby setting up an independent machinery to investigate the damage caused during anti-CAA protest in Delhi and to award the damage caused during anti CAA Protest in Delhi and to award compensation related thereto and allow him to use all powers and measures mentioned in In Re: Destruction Of Public And Private Properties Vs State of A.P," according to legal news website LiveLaw.

Communal clashes had broken out in north-east Delhi on February 24, 2020, after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 700 injured.