HC restrains Greater Chennai Corporation from disturbing a road side eatery

Corporation informs judges that it is in the process of constituting new town vending committees since the court had in April this year declared the previous committees as illegal

The Madras High Court has restrained Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) from taking coercive action against a roadside eatery selling tea, coffee, snacks, tiffin and other food items near Vallalar Nagar bus stand in North Chennai until the consideration of his application for licence by an yet-to-be constituted town vending committee.

A Division Bench of Justices V.M. Velumani and R. Hemalatha passed the orders while disposing of a writ petition filed by the vendor P. Devadoss to restrain the corporation officials from interfering with his business until the consideration of his application under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood Regulation) Act of 2014.

The petitioner had told the court that he had been running the roadside eatery for long and had made an application under the 2014 Act on August 10, 2019. Despite the length of time, the chairperson of the town vending committee for zone 5 had not conducted any enumeration exercise to identify the vendors in the locality, he complained.

On the other hand, GCC standing counsel G.T. Subramanian told the court that on April 27, 2022, the first Division Bench of the High Court comprising the then Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy had held as illegal the constitution of the town vending committees by GCC.

That order was passed while allowing a public interest litigation petition which contended that the committees had not been constituted as per the statutory provisions. The counsel further submitted that GCC was in the process of constituting the committees afresh and that the petitioner’s application would be considered thereafter.

After recording his submission, the judges directed the petitioner to submit a fresh representation within four weeks and ordered that it should be considered after the constitution of the new committees. “Till such time, the respondents are restrained from taking any coercive steps against the petitioner,” the Bench ordered.