Jagdish Chand Jain vs MCD

Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, J.—The appellant having failed in the writ petition preferred impugning the order dated 25th February, 2011 of the

Appellate Authority constituted under National Policy on Urban Street Vendors, 2009, has preferred this appeal.

The appellant is a hawker/street vendor. He was found eligible by the Zonal Vending Committee constituted under the Policy aforesaid for a

hawking/vending site and was allotted such site at Raghubir Nagar, Delhi. He applied for change of the said site to that outside Vishal Cinema at

Delhi and having failed to convince the Zonal Vending Committee (ZVC), approached the Appellate Authority aforesaid.

It was the plea of the appellant that he had been hawking/vending from outside Vishal Cinema since the year 1982 and was thus entitled to

continue at the said site. It was the case of the respondent MCD that the appellant had initially been allotted a site at Khayala village but since he

did not come forward to take that site, he was subsequently allotted the site at Ragbhubir Nagar to which also he did not shift and unathorizedly

continued outside Vishal Cinema.

The Appellate Authority held that the trade i.e. Dhaba for sale of Chhole Bhature which the appellant was carrying, was in any case not

permitted outside Vishal Cinema and thus rejected the request of the appellant.

In the judicial review sought by the appellant by filing W.P.(C) No. 3931/2011, the learned Single Judge has found no error in the decision of

the Appellate Authority and has rather observed that it was not for this Court to start interfering in the allocation of hawking/vending sites done by

the authorities constituted for the said purpose. Accordingly the writ petition was dismissed in limine.

The counsel for the appellant has before us urged that the appellant has a fundamental right to carry on hawking/vending activities outside Vishal

Cinema. We are unable to find any such right in favour of the appellant. The Supreme Court having made elaborate arrangements and having laid

down the Policy for considering the claims of the hawkers/street vendors who are much more in number than the hawking/vending sites available

and having constituted the Zonal Vending Committees and the Appellate Authority in this regard, this Court cannot exercise appellate powers over

the decision of the Zonal Vending Committees constituted for the purpose of consideration of claims and allocation of sites. The Appellate

Authority in the present case has given the cogent reasons for dismissing the claim of the petitioner for change of vending site and the learned Single

Judge has rightly refused to interfere.

There is thus no merit in the appeal; the same is dismissed.