Roads, Pavements Cannot Be Blocked By Hawkers, Street Vendors: High Court

New Delhi: Roads and pavements in the national capital cannot be allowed to be blocked by hawkers, but genuine street vendors would be protected, Delhi High Court said today.

A bench of justices GS Sistani and Vinod Goel made it clear that if the scheme of the Street Vendors Act, 2014, was not allowed to work, the court will remove all protections granted by it.

"No genuine hawker will be removed, but no illegal hawker will be spared. Genuine persons may have been granted protection, but we will not allow roads to be blocked, whether vendors are genuine or not genuine," the bench, which has been specially constituted to deal with street vendor matters, said.

If one looks at any road or area like Lajpat Nagar or Karol Bagh in the national capital, "traffic is not moving because vendors are on the roads," it said.

"Roads are bursting to the seams everywhere. There is no place to put another vendor. Everywhere in Delhi we cannot see a single pavement. Barring Lutyen's zone, every pavement is full. If there is a fire, so many people could die," it said.

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The lawyers representing the street vendors contended that they should not be blamed for congestion on roads and it was because of illegal parking of vehicles.

Disagreeing with the claim, the bench said if hawkers take up the parking spots, then where will people park.

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The court warned that the vendors should allow the Act to be implemented and if they challenge the law, the rules and schemes framed there under, then the stay order would be withdrawn.

The bench, thereafter, directed the Registry of the high court to list before it all the matters relating to street vendors.

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It said it will take up all the matters on December 9, the next date of hearing.

The court was hearing pleas filed by Congress leader Ajay Maken and others, who said the Delhi government had failed to prepare a scheme in consultation with Town Vending Committee (TVC) as per the Act, to conduct a survey of the number and location of vendors, even when the law clearly envisaged that till such a survey is completed, no street vendor shall be evicted or relocated.

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Mr Maken and other petitioners have alleged that municipal bodies of central and south Delhi were "throwing out" street vendors from hawking zones, despite a court order protecting them from such action.

In their pleas, they have contended that the high court on October 5 had ruled that its September 9 order that no street vendor should be evicted from the city roads without due process of law, shall not be applicable on non-hawking zones.

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They had said that under the garb of this order, New Delhi Municipal Council and South Delhi Municipal Corporation were evicting vendors even from hawking zones like Rajiv Chowk, Indira Chowk and Lajpat Nagar and have sought that they be restrained from taking any coercive action.