Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh home department has asked all 75 district magistrates in the state to initiate the process to withdraw over 20,000 "political cases" registered against politicians till December 31, 2015, including one against chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

This follows the passage of a bill in the Assembly last Friday.

The case against Adityanath was registered 22 years ago in Gorakhpur for defying allegedly prohibitory orders to address a meeting.

Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya is also set to be let off in a similar case registered in Kaushambi a decade ago.

The government's decision did not run into any opposition. Tabled in the Assembly on December 21, the Uttar Pradesh Criminal Law (Composition of Offences and Abatement of Trials) (Amendment) Bill, 2017, was passed the next day without any opposition from any party.

The bill will now be sent to governor Ram Naik for his signature.

While tabling the bill, Adityanath had told the House that 20,000 "politically motivated" and "non-serious" cases were filed across the state over dharna and demonstrations and he believed it was time to withdraw them.

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav told reporters the decision had been taken "to give amnesty to the CM" but didn't explain why he or his party leaders didn't oppose the bill in the House.