Madhya Pradesh to bring in law to recover cost of damaged property during riots, rallies

If the damages are not paid within 15 days of the Tribunal order, the tribunal will then be empowered to write to the district collector concerned to make recovery on the lines of the same done by the Revenue Department.

The Madhya Pradesh government is all set to introduce a bill allowing the government to recover up to twice the damages from an individual or a group for causing loss of public and private properties during communal riots, strikes, protests and rallies.

Principal Secretary (Home), Rajesh Rajora said, “The bill will come up for discussion in the forthcoming winter session once it is passed by the cabinet.”

The bill, tentatively called the Madhya Pradesh Public and Private Property Damage Resolution and Recovery Bill, 2021, aims to realise damages from those accused of causing them through formation of various claims tribunals across the state.

The bill not only empowers the claims tribunal to recover up to twice the damages incurred to an individual or government but also levy interest in case the recovery is not made within 15 days since the order of the tribunal. The tribunal can also compensate an individual for the money spent in fighting the case in the tribunal.

If the damages are not paid within 15 days of the Tribunal order, the tribunal will then be empowered to write to the district collector concerned to make recovery on the lines of the same done by the Revenue Department.

A senior official from the state government said: “The tribunals will issue a certificate to the collector which the concerned district collector will use to recover pending dues as per the awarded compensation. The district collector will act as per the provision of Arrears of Land Revenue as per the Revenue Recovery Act 1980.” The district collector can seize, auction movable and immovable assets of those held responsible in a bid to recover the claims.

According to provisions of the bills, the damages will be recovered not only from those responsible for causing those damages but also those found to have incited the incident or encouraged others to cause the damage.

“The bill is looking at setting up Claims Tribunals to recover those indulging in stone pelting and causing damage to private and public property. The cases in the tribunal will be resolved within three months and its order will only be challenged in the High Court. But those indulging in riots and stone pelting causing damage to public and private property will not be spared,” said Home Minister Narottam Mishra while interacting with the media in Datia on Wednesday.

A similar law was passed by Uttar Pradesh in 2020 while Haryana passed it in 2021. Madhya Pradesh will be the third state to execute it.

The order of the claims tribunal could only be challenged in the High Court while the police action in such cases will be independent of the Claims Tribunal. These Claims Tribunal will have the powers of the Civil Court as per the Code of Civil Procedure 1908.

A law to be made on similar lines was first discussed in the state in January this year, after a communal clash in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain district, where a Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha rally was pelted with stones by residents of Begum Bagh in an alleged retaliation to provocative slogans made by those in the rally.

This was followed by stone pelting on rallies carried out by members of right wing groups in Indore, Mandsaur. After this, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had stated that the government is bringing in a law to make the stone-pelters pay while asserting that the rule of law will prevail in Madhya Pradesh.

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