India’s Supreme Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government to withdraw its Oct. 26 notification under which compensation and rehabilitation was limited to Muzaffarnagar riot victims of minority community.

The court has asked the UP government to withdraw the “controversial” notification. The apex court bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam, Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice Ranjan Gogoi took on record the statement by senior counsel Rajiv Dhawan that the notification will be withdrawn and the government will revise it, which will apply universally.

Dhawan who appeared for the UP government offered to withdraw the notification as counsel M.L. Sharma, representing a petitioner, pointed to discrimination in the distribution of compensation and rehabilitation of the riot victims. The court also directed the state government to release 15 tractors of farmers that are in police custody.

The court has given strict instructions to the government to compensate the farmer whose sugarcane crops and tube wells were damaged during the riots. The court order came in response to submission by senior counsel Pinki Anand, representing another petitioner, who told the court that the farmers of minority community were unable to cultivate their land as their tractors were not being released by the police.

She said that irrigation too was getting affected as some tube wells are damaged.