The district administration of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday initiated the process of returning fines collected from people accused of damaging public property during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019, The Indian Express reported.

The decision by the administration comes a month after the Supreme Court had ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to withdraw the recovery notices in the case.

Additional District Magistrate Atul Kumar said that cheques were prepared and sent to the tehsildar for distribution.

Ritesh Kumar Singh, a tehsildar in the Kanpur Sadar area, said that six people were given cheques worth Rs 13,476 each on the first day.

“I have got 33 cheques to distribute,” Singh said, according to The Indian Express. “Many could not be traced because they have vacated their homes and shifted to a different address. We will trace them and hand over their cheques.”

In December 2019, the Uttar Pradesh government had sent 274 notices to people for allegedly causing damage to public properties during the agitation against the amendment based on religion in the citizenship law. Of these notices, recovery orders were passed in 236, while 38 cases were closed by an additional district magistrate.

These notices were challenged before the Supreme Court on the grounds that the way the recovery was carried out went against the law.

On February 12, the Supreme Court had pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government for taking action on the notices. It said the government had failed to follow the court’s guidelines on how to recover costs for damage to property during protests.

“You [the Uttar Pradesh government] have become complainant, you have become adjudicator and then you are attaching the property of the accused,” the court had said.

On February 18, the Uttar Pradesh government had told the court that it had withdrawn the recovery notices. The court had then directed the state government to refund the entire amount worth crores of rupees back to the alleged protestors.

On Tuesday, the Kanpur administration said that Rs 3.66 lakh was collected from 33 alleged protestors in the city.

“A chart was prepared of the persons from whom the fine was collected,” an unidentified district official said, according to Indian Express. “Officials have been directed to deliver the cheques to their doorstep.”

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