NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Thursday took a dim view of attempts by police to pass off deserted streets in Chandni Chowk during weekend curfew and Republic Day parade as strict enforcement of the no-hawking policy.
The court asked the police commissioner and chief of North Delhi Municipal Corporation to remain present on the next date, February 28, to explain how they proposed to deal with the menace of illegal hawking.
“The continuing state of affairs shows ad hoc action being taken for selective removal of encroachments by the corporation and Delhi Police, which has not yielded the desired results or permanently ended encroachments in the no hawking zone of Chandni Chowk,” a bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh noted.
The bench underlined that several orders had been passed by Supreme Court and high court from 2017, “but there seems to be hardly any improvement on ground”. It pointed out how its orders against illegal hawking in certain other markets, including Connaught Place and Nehru Place, had been successfully complied with by the authorities concerned.
“The time has come for this court to require the presence of the Delhi Police commissioner as well as commissioner of North Delhi Municipal Corporation to explain how they propose to deal with the ongoing menace,” said the court, adding that it couldn’t accept the position that the authorities were helpless. They couldn’t surrender or abdicate their statutory responsibility as it would lead to anarchy and failure of the rule of law.
The strong order came after the court examined the status report filed by police and found pictures of the streets from Republic Day and other dates when there was a weekend curfew in the city to show that they had undertaken a drive to remove encroachment. The Kotwali SHO claimed several photographs of other dates were also filed in the status report to show that continuous action had been taken.
However, the bench told police’s counsel Anuj Aggarwal, “This does not explain the filing of photographs claiming that they had cleared encroachment… The factual statement is that on these days police undertook the removal exercise, which, in fact, was not undertaken. This is a clear endeavour to mislead this court.” It added that north corporation had “fairly pointed out this fact.”
Senior advocate Sanjeev Ralli, appearing for Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal, submitted that in spite of the court order, there was still encroachment on public pathways and roads. He also placed photographs of vending and hawking activities. North corporation counsel Mini Pushkarna said several actions had been taken for removal of encroachment.
Last month, the court had asked police and the corporation to conduct drives for removing all unauthorised vendors from no-hawking zones.
