The Madras High Court on Wednesday allowed a public interest litigation petition and declared as illegal the constitution of Town Vending Committees by Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act of 2014.
Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy held that the town vending committees had not been constituted by GCC strictly as per the mandate under Section 22 of the 2014 Act and hence they could not be allowed to continue to carry out their functions.
They agreed with the petitioner’s counsel P. Vijendran that the town vending committees ought to have been headed by the GCC commissioner and not an Executive Engineer of the corporation. The judges expressed their displeasure over the corporation not having reconstituted the committees despite grant of time.
