Court threatens to send hawkers to BMC chiefs,mayors houses ….Hetal Vyas
CIVIC BODY SLAMMED FOR NOT CHECKING ILLEGAL HAWKING,BUT PRAISED FOR ALLOWING BOLLARDS ON FOOTPATHS TO STOP SAME MENACE
CIVIC BODY SLAMMED FOR NOT CHECKING ILLEGAL HAWKING,BUT PRAISED FOR ALLOWING BOLLARDS ON FOOTPATHS TO STOP SAME MENACE
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has once more attracted the ire of the Bombay high court,this time for failing to deal with the menace of unauthorized hawkers.The judges threatened to send illegal hawkers to the bungalows of the civic chief and mayor so that BMC bosses know what the public puts up with.
On Thursday,while hearing a petition filed by the Shri Vile Parle Kelawani Mandal,one of the citys top educational organizations,the court also asked the civic body to send its staffers to states like Gujarat to learn how the menace has been dealt with there.A division bench of Justice P B Majmudar and Justice Amjad Sayed said,Ask your people to go to other states and find out what they have done (to prevent illegal hawkers).You wont find hawkers in Delhi also.
Justice Majmudar,who earlier presided in the Gujarat high court,observed that when Gujarat faced a similar problem,it found an answer by putting boulders on footpaths so that illegal hawkers could not encroach.
Since January,the court has come down on the civic body on several occasions,criticizing it for not adequately ridding the city of illegal political hoardings and rampant unauthorized construction and not providing clean drinking water.
The Shri Vile Parle Kelawani Mandal runs about 40 educational institutions,mostly in Juhu.They include the Narsee Monjee College,Mithibai College,Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS),SBM Polytechnic,Jitendra Chauhan Law College and D J Sanghavi College of Engineering.The mandals institutes have about 30,000 students.The petitioner wants the BMC to take action against illegal hawkers outside its institutions,as they have been declared no-hawking zones and because the hawkers are a nuisance.
BMC advocate Komal Punjabi argued that the BMC regularly takes action against illegal hawkers,but they tend to return.Punjabi informed the court that since May 2010,the BMC has taken mass action at least 30 times against hawkers.FIRs have been registered against nine hawkers.Also,the corporation has deployed a van along with its staff to patrol the Juhu area every day, Punjabi said.
The court observed that such a defence should not be given by the corporation.The corporation should evolve a machinery to tackle the menace and the places occupied could be blocked,like with boulders,so the hawkers dont return.Otherwise,those breaking the law will benefit and there will be a mockery of the system, the court said.
The petitioners counsels Vijay A Thorat and Jamshed Mistry said no action has been taken against even paanbeedi shops outside the institutes.Irked by the BMCs claims of action,Justice Majmudar remarked,It is an eyewash.They (hawkers) are near schools and colleges and children are buying paanbeedi.That is why we are more concerned. The judge said,We will send all of them (hawkers) to your commissioners bungalow,first to the commissioners bungalow and then to the mayors bungalow.They can sit outside and hawk. The court suggested that,like Gujarat,the BMC should consider using boulders to prevent hawkers.
Punjabi argued that the problem existed across the city.The court suggested that the BMC start a phase-wise plan to check illegal hawking and remarked that action should be taken against any ward officer who fails to check the menace.The BMC has been directed to file an affidavit giving details of authorized and unauthorized hawkers in the Juhu area.