Bombay HC tells Mumbai civic body: ‘Show us you can crack down on hawkers’

The Bombay High Court while hearing a suo motu PIL on Wednesday on the issue of illegal hawking increasing in the city directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC to evict such vendors from the stretch between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus CSMT and Flora Fountain and monitor the situation for two weeksIf the civic bodyrsquos efforts prove successful they can be replicated across the city the court stated The court also ordered the additional commissioner of police concerned to ensure armed police protection was provided to civic officials while they got rid of the hawkers The PIL was heard by a division bench comprising Justice A S Gadkari and Justice Kamal KhataDuring the hearing the court emphasised that the removal of hawkers should be a continuous process stating ldquoThe BMC must remove them repeatedly if they returnrdquo The bench was critical of the civic bodys previous efforts Justice Gadkari passing a comment said ldquoOfficials are intentionally ignoring earlier directives or failing to understand simple instructionshellip Tell us bluntly how many hawkers do you want to protect or hawkers from which area do you want to protectrdquoBefore breaking for lunch the court directed the BMC officers present to inspect the stretch between CSMT and Flora Fountain and submit a report on whether they were following the courts earlier orders concerning the removal of hawkersCivic officials crack down on hawkers on D N Road following the high courtrsquos ordersJustice Gadkari stated ldquoThis is complete lawlessness Despite multiple orders passed by the court and replies filed by the state agencies the ultimate result is that the hawkers are still on the spot The BMC is unable to control hawkers Pedestrians have the right to walk on the footpaths The BMC has not complied with our orders time and againrdquoA few hours laterhellipShortly after the high court issued the orders the BMC swung into action seizing goods of hawkers who lacked licences Initially they were accompanied by police officers but after some time the latter were seen leaving the civic officials to their own devices in violation of the courtrsquos ordersPolice officers who accompanied civic officials during the crackdown PicsAtul KambleParikshak Patil an official from the BMCrsquos encroachment department was heard requesting police officers to stay In response to this a police officer said he had somewhere else to be Speaking in Marathi the official said ldquoTumhi tumchi karvayi kara amhi amchi karvayi karayla jato You do what you have to do we are going to do what we have to dordquoPatil the civic official said ldquoI was present during the hearing on Wednesday and heard each and every word the judges said Thatrsquos why we requested the police officers to stay until our task was completed but they leftrdquoAt some locations hawkers were seen showing licenses issued by the BMC licensing department The BMC officials seized some goods from some of these hawkers while leaving others untouchedExplaining this Patil said ldquoWe cannot seize all the goods of licensed hawkers These vendors are allowed to put up a 1x1metre stall We have seized whatever goods were outside this permitted space Today the licensing department officials will visit these stalls to check their licence again and issue an IR inspection report If the stall is found to be bigger than the area permitted action will be taken against the stall ownerDuring the hearing when the BMC counsel had raised the point of licensed hawkers the bench stated ldquoWe said not a single unlicensed hawker should be seen on the decided stretch We have not passed any directives about licensed hawkers Whatever and whoever is illegal should gordquoOct 23Day hearing was held