Street Vendors Can't Be Labelled As Encroachers, Municipal Authority Collecting Fee From Them Should Give Social Security: P&H High Court

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has made it clear that street vendors cannot simply be evicted on account of not having vending certificates and recommended the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation to provide social security schemes.

Finding the plea–seeking removal of street vendors–to be motivated the court dismissed it with cost of Rs 50,000 on the petitioners. 

A division bench of Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Meenakshi I. Mehta in its order said:

"Regulations (Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014) have been laid down for street vending with the Town Vending Committee to conduct survey after every five years binding them to ensure that all who have been surveyed are accommodated in the vending zones subject to certain conditions. No street vendor is to be evicted or re-located till their survey is completed and a certificate of vending is issued to all the street vendors. As the vendors have a right to receive a certificate once they are identified in the survey."

Speaking for the bench, Justice Sharma said that the street vendors and their families, who are depositing fee with the Municipal Corporation for the certificate being given to them for vending, also need to be provided some social protection.

"The amount so recovered by the Municipal Corporation should, therefore, be used for their benefits alone and should be kept in a separate budget head, and as a suitable insurance for them, including medical facilities, should be provided by the Municipal Corporation, U.T. Chandigarh, and Rules in this regard should be framed," added the bench.

The Court also noted that the Street Vending Act and the benefits which it meant to give to the genuine street vendors is also being misused by a certain set of persons, and even the shopkeepers themselves setup hawkers' stall in front of their shops selling their own items.

 "At the same time, a certain group of people use wrongful means to get their name entered in the survey registers and illegally get sites registered for hawkers purposely. Such misuse of law deserves to be dealt with by an iron hand and a will to execute the provisions of law with integrity and dutifully," it added.

The Court recommended that the Municipal Corporation, U.T. Chandigarh, should accordingly set up a "particular cell of Inspectors/Officers" to regulate that there is no misuse of the Vendors' Act so that genuine people may not be harmed.

These observations were made while hearing the plea filed by presidents of Manimajra Vyapar Mandal and residential welfare association seeking directions to evict the vendors allegedly encroaching the public path and hindering the free passage in Manimajra in union territory of Chandigarh. 

PThe court further observed that despite 12 years of Supreme Court's decision in Gainda Ram and others v/s MCD and others–where the Supreme Court had held that hawkers/vendors have a fundamental right to hawking–an attempt had been made through the present writ petition to evit vendors who are carrying our vending since long. 

Development Of City Is Done On Account Of Migrants From Villages,

The Court observed that, "India, being essentially a country of people coming from the villages and cities being formed by their movement of villagers towards the townships for greener pastures, continues to remain an agrarian society. In fact, development of any city is on account of the reason of movement of the people from the villages to the towns and from towns to form cities."

It highlighted that, “the approximate total population of Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata (then Calcutta) in 1947 was 15,13,000 which has been now increased to approximately 28,00,000 as on today. Thus, there is exodus from a village to influx in a city. More and more people came to the city in search of employment and earning.”

The Court dismissed the present plea with cost observing that, “We cannot allow such abuse of process of law. The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed with costs of Rs. 50,000/- each on both the Unions to be deposited with the Municipal Corporation, U.T. Chandigarh, for the welfare of the street vendors and their families.”

The plea was thus dismissed.

Also read: 'We're A Country Where Clerks Become Chief Justices, Tribal Lady Becomes President': P&H High Court On Elites Belittling Small Businesses

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Case Title: Malkit Singh and another v. State of U. T. Chandigarh and others

Mr. Hardip Singh, Advocate, for the petitioners.

Mr. Sanjiv Ghai, Advocate, for respondent nos. 2 and 3.

Click here to read/download the order