Indian Christian and Mu-slim leaders have hailed a Supreme Court judgment directing a refund of fines collected by the Uttar Pradesh state government from those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) Bill.
The fines amounting to 2.24 million rupees (US$29, 900) were imposed on more than 800 protesters alleging they had damaged public property during the nationwide agitation in 2019.
In a landmark judgment, the apex court directed authorities in the northern state to refund the entire amount, saying the proceedings were contrary to the law and cannot be sustained.
The state authorities were pushed on the back foot after being accused by the apex court of being the “complainant, adjudicator and prosecutor” and arbitrarily recovering the fines from elderly people over 90 years of age, women, students and activists.
The authorities had accused these protesters of vandalizing public property while participating in protests held nationwide against a legal amendment to the citizenship law that was based on religion and discriminatory.
The controversial bill sought to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, to make illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan eligible for Indian citizenship. The bill relaxed the requirement of residence in India from 11 years to six years for these mi-grants but excluded Muslims.