PETITIONER:
BOMBAY HAWKERS' UNION AND ORS.
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
BOMBAY MUNICIPAL CORPORATION AND ORS.
DATE OF JUDGMENT03/07/1985
BENCH:
CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. ((CJ)
BENCH:
CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. ((CJ)
SEN, A.P. (J)
CITATION:
1985 AIR 1206 1985 SCR Supl. (1) 849
1985 SCC (3) 528 1985 SCALE (2)59
CITATOR INFO :
F 1989 SC 38 (13,14)
D 1989 SC1988 (20)
R 1992 SC1153 (1)
ACT:
Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 sections 313,
313-A, 314(3) and 497, whether violative of Article 19(1)
(g) of the Constitution-Right to carry on trade, business or
calling by hawkers on footpaths and on public streets-Merits
and feasibility of a scheme for the licensing of hawkers in
Greater Bombay by creating hawking zones by the Municipal
Commissioner. dated 23 November, 1983-Modalities to be
adopted for the purpose of hawking and non-hawking zones.
HEADNOTE:
There are about 1,50,000 hawkers in the city of Bombay,
one sixth of them being women. Broadly, there are three
types of hawkers-those who have four-wheeled carts, those
squat on the streets numbering about 1,20,000 and the rest
who have stalls to enable them to stand and sell their
wares. They sell almost everything under the sun, from
hairpins to hot food and vegetables to vides cassettes. They
hawk their wares standing or squatting on public streets,
which constitutes a serious impediment to the free movement
of pedestrian and vehicle a traffic. Some of the streets in
Bombay are so incredibly flooded with merchandise sold by
hawkers that it is impossible for the pedestrians to walk on
those streets The Bombay Municipal Corporation has been
making Herculean efforts to clear the streets of these and
other obstructions but, those efforts have met with intense
opposition from several quarters.
The Bombay Hawker's Union, a trade which has a large
number of hawkers on its membership roll and which has been
unsuccessfully negotiating with the Municipal authorities
for the creation of a hawker's zone and for granting
adequate number of licences to hawkers to enable them to
carry on their trade and business, along with petitioner No
2 the President of the Bombay Hawker's Union and
incidentally a corporator has challenged the Constitutional
validity of the provisions of sections 313, 313-A, 314(3)
and 497 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 on the
ground that they confer upon the respondents unguided power
to refuse to grant or renew licences for hawking and to
remove the goods without affording to the hawkers an
opportunity to be heard. There writ petitions were filed by
those who carry on the business of hawking contending that
they have a fundamental right to carry on their trade
business or calling. with which the respondents are
unlawfully interfering by arbitrarily refusing to grant or
renew licences for hawking, which renders them liable to be
removed along with their goods, from places where they to
their business.
850
During the pendency of the writ petition, on the
intervention of the Court, the Municipal Corporation
formulated a scheme for the licensing of hawkers in Greater
Bombay by creating hawking zones. Preferring to adopt "non
liquet" as to the validity of the challenge by the
petitioners to certain provisions of the Bombay Municipal
Corporation Act, the Court considered the merits and
feasibility of the scheme and suggested modalities to be
adopted by the Corporation in so far as hawking and non-
hawking zones are concerned.
Disposing off the writ petitions, the Court,
^
HELD: 1.1 The right conferred by Article 19(1) (g) of
the Constitution to carry on any trade or business is
subject to the provisions of clause (b) of that Article,
which provides that nothing in sub-clause (g) of Article
19(1) shall affect the operation of any existing law in so
far as it imposes, or prevents the State from making any law
imposing. in the interests of the general public, reasonable
restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the
said subclause. Here, the affidavits filed on behalf of the
respondent in unmistakable terms show that the impugned
provisions of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act are in
the nature of reasonable restrictions, in the interests of
the general public, on the exercise of the right of hawkers
to carry on their trade or business [855 C-D]
1.2 No one has any right to do his or her trade or
business so as to cause nuisance, annoyance or inconvenience
to the other members of the public. Public streets, by their
very nomenclature and definition, are meant for the use of
the general public. They are not laid to facilitate the
carrying on of private trade or business. If hawkers were to
be conceded the right claimed by them, they could hold the
society to ransom by squatting on the centre of busy
thoroughfares, thereby paralysing all civic life. Indeed,
that is what some of them have done in some parts of the
city. They have made it impossible for the pedestrians to
walk on footpaths or even on the streets properly so called.
[855 E-G]
2.1 As to the merits and feasibility of the scheme
formulated for the licensing of hawkers in Greater Bombay by
creating hawking zones formulated by the Municipal
Commissioner in letter No. MDG/2418 dated 30th September,
1983, and in particular the eight conditions subject to
which the Commissioner proposes to grant licences to the
hawkers, no exception can be taken to conditions (i), (ii),
(iii), (iv) (vii) and (viii) except that conditions (ii) and
(viii) require a little modification. The first part of
condition (ii) beginning with the words "they should not put
up any stall" and ending with the words "nor should they
hawk on handcarts" may stand. But, the second part of that
condition should not be construed to mean that the hawkers
will not be entitled even to protect their wares against the
sun, rain, wind and so on, by spreading a cloth, plastic
sheet, chaddar, tarpaulin etc. The object of that condition
is to ensure that no construction is put up and no handcarts
are used. In so far as condition No. (viii) is concerned,
all that it should be understood to mean is that the fact
that a daily fee is charged will not confer upon the hawker
the right to do his business at any particular place That is
because, the daily fee is a kind of licence fee to do
businees it is not a fee charged for doing business
851
at any particular place. The Commissioner will, therefore,
be free to impose conditions (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (vii)
and (viii) while granting licences to the hawkers in the
Hawking Zones, after making the necessary clarifications in
conditions (ii) and (viii). [859 GH-H 860 A-C]
2.2 Condition (v) is an unreasonable restriction on the
hawkers' right to carry on their trade or business. There
are several working families in Bombay, belonging to
different strata of society, which depend upon the food
supplied by hawkers. The hawkers cannot be denied the right
to sell cooked food, cut fruits and the like. That will, of
course, not confer upon them the licence to sell adulterated
or unhygienic food. They shall have to comply, like any
other vendor of food, with the Municipal licensing
regulations and the provisions of the Prevention of Food
Adulteration Act, 1954. [860 C-D]
2.3 The hours of business mentioned in condition (vi)
should be from 7 A.M. to P.M. instead of 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. In
cities like Bombay, nights are quite young at 10 P.M.[860 D-
E]
3. In so far as Hawking and non-hawking Zones are
concerned, the Commissioner should adopt the following
modalities:-
(a) As far as possible, there should be one Hawking
Zone for every two contiguous municipal wards in Greater
Bombay.
(b) The Non-Hawking Zones may be fixed by the Municipal
Commissioner in his discretion, in consultation with the
Bombay Municipal Corporation.
(c) In areas other than the Non-Hawking Zones, licences
should be granted to the hawkers to do their business on
payment of the prescribed fee. That will be without
prejudice to the right of the Commissioner to extend the
limits of the non-Hawking Zones in the interests of public
health, sanitation, safety, public convenience and the like.
(d) Hawking licences should not be refused in the
Hawking Zones except for good reasons. The discretion not to
grant a hawking licence in the Hawking Zones should be
exercised by the Commissioner reasonably and in public
interest.
(e) In future, before making any alteration in the
scheme the Commissioner should take into confidence all
public interests, including the hawkers, the Commissioner of
Police and representative associations of the public such as
the one which appeared before us. Hawkers have the right to
do their business, subject to reasonable restrictions in the
interests of the general public The Police Commissioner is
in the best position to speak about the law and order
problem as well as the traffic hazards created by street
trading. The general public has a stake in showing how and
why the hawking trade should
852
be regulated. The power conferred upon the Commissioner by
section 313-A of the Act to grant licences to hawkers is in
the nature of a discretion coupled with a duty. It is,
therefore, essential that the said power should be exercised
by consulting all concerned interests and guided by
considerations of what is in the interests of the general
public. The scheme framed by the Commissioner will have a
binding effect on all concerned. [860 E-H,861A-D]
JUDGMENT:
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petitions Nos. 5602-5605
of 1983
Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India
Miss Indira Jai Singh and Miss Kamini Jaiswal for the
Petitioners.
K. K. Singhvi, K.K. Venugopal, D.N. Mishra, Karadhkar,
M. N. Shroff, Ms. Manik Karanjawala and S. Manik Karanjawala
for the Respondents.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
CHANDRACHUD, C J. These writ petitions are filed by and
on behalf of a large number of hawkers who carry on the
trade of hawking their wares in Greater Bombay. They sell
almost everything under the sun, from hairpins to hot food
and vegetables to video cassettes. They hawk their wares
standing or squatting on public streets, which constitutes a
serious impediment to the free movement of pedestrian and
vehicular traffic. Standing, of course, is safer than
squatting because, it ensures easy mobility at the sight of
Municipal or police officers. Mobile hawkers decorated with
a hundred ball pens, like war-medals, is quite a common
sight in Bombay. Constraints of modern times have created
ingenious methods of trading. Some of the streets in Bombay
are so incredibly flooded with merchandise sold by hawkers
that it is impossible for the pedestrians to walk on those
streets. The Bombay Municipal Corporation has been making
Herculean efforts to clear the streets of these and other
obstructions but, those efforts have met with intense
opposition from several quarters, not unexpectedly, even
from those who wield considerable political influence. In
the ultimate analysis, it is the ballot-box that matters.
This tug-of-war or the game of hide-and-seek between the
Corporation and the hawkers led recently to a serious
incident in which an officer of the Corporation engaged in
the task of
853
demolishing unauthorised constructions put up on public
streets, was shot at. He survived but, such is the magnitude
of the problem
Petitioner 1 is the Bombay Hawkers’ Union, a Trade
union which has a large number of hawkers on its membership
roll. It has been negotiating with the Municipal authorities
for the creation of a hawkers’ zone and for granting
adequate number of licences to hawkers to enable them to
carry on their trade and business. There are about 1, 50,000
hawkers in the city of Bombay, 1/6th of them being women.
Broadly, there are three types of hawkers – those who have
four-wheeled carts, those who squat on the streets and those
who have stalls. The largest amongst these are the squatting
hawkers who number about 1,20,000. Petitioner 2 is the
President of the Bombay Hawkers’ Union and is also a
Corporator. The other three petitioners carry on the
business of hawking.
Respondent 1 is the Municipal Corporation of Greater
Bombay, respondent 2 is the State of Maharashtra, respondent
3 is the Municipal Commissioner, while respondent 4 is the
Commissioner of police.
The contention of the petitioners is that they have a
fundamental right to carry on their trade, business or
calling and that the respondents are unlawfully interfering
with that right. The petitioners complain that respondents 1
to 3 arbitrarily refuse to grant or renew licences for
hawking, which renders the hawkers liable to be removed
along with their goods, from places where they do their
business. By these writ petitions, the petitioners ask for a
declaration that the provisions of sections 313, 313-A, 314
(3) and 497 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888
are void since, they confer upon the respondents an
arbitrary and unguided power to refuse to grant or renew
licences for hawking and to remove the goods without
affording to the hawkers an opportunity to be heard.
These writ petitions were heard from time to time when,
several suggestions were made and possibilities explored for
evolving a satisfactory solution to the problems faced by
both the sides. It was eventually decided and, a consensus
emerged between the parties that the Municipal Commissioner
should frame a scheme for regulat-
854
ing the grant of licences to hawkers and for creating
hawkers’ zones wherever necessary. In pursuance of this
understanding, several meetings were held between the
officers of the Bombay Municipal Corporation and, the
members of the Hawkers’ Committee of which the Mayor of
Bombay was the Chairman. By this letter dated May 6, 1983
the Municipal Commissioner proposed a scheme, which is
annexed as Exhibit I to the affidavit of Digambar Anant
Padgaonkar, who is the Superintendent of Licences in the
Municipal Corporation. The Hawkers’ union showed hardly any
response to the proposed scheme and it took no decision
thereon. When these writ petitions come up for hearing
before this Court on August 5, 1983, the following order was
passed:
“If the members of the Hawkers’ Committee do not
come to any decision by consensus, the Commissioner of
Bombay Municipal Corporation will be free to frame a
scheme. We are informed by Mr. Singhvi that the next
meeting is fixed on 12th August 1983. The scheme shall
be framed as expeditiously as possible thereafter.”
The meeting was eventually held on September 12, 1983 when
the Hawkers’ Committee discussed the proposals made by the
Municipal Commissioner. No agreement could be reached in
that meeting since, the Hawkers’ union expressed
reservations about some terms of the scheme.
In defence to the suggestions of the Hawkers’
Committee, the Municipal Commissioner proposed a modified
scheme by his letter dated September 30, 1983. The Hawkers’
Committee met under the chairmanship of the Mayor of Bombay,
Shri Manmohan Singh Bedi, and recommended to the Corporation
that the Commissioner may proceed to formulate a final
scheme for regulating hawking, on the lines suggested by him
in his letter dated September 30 1983. The ‘Fifth and Final
Report’ of the Hawkers’ Committee dated October 15, 1983 is
Exhibit III to the letter addressed by the Municipal
Commissioner to the Mayor of Bombay, which is at Exhibit I.
On November 23, 1983 an application for directions was
filed by the petitioners, asking specifically that the
Municipal Commissioner be asked to formulate a scheme for
the licensing of hawkers in Greater Bombay by creating
hawking zones. That application
855
was heard by us along with the writ petitions, when the
parties argued upon the merits and demerits of the scheme
proposed by the Municipal Commissioner. After we heard
counsel for the respective parties for some time, it was
decided that we will pass orders on the basis of the scheme
framed by the Commissioner with such modifications as we
consider proper and necessary.
In view of the fact that we are primarily concerned to
consider the merits an feasibility of the scheme proposed by
the Municipal Commissioner, it is necessary to consider the
validity of the challenge made by the petitioners to certain
provisions of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act. We
would, however, like to add that there is no substance in
that challenge because, the right conferred by Article 19
(l) (g) of the Constitution to carry on any trade or
business is subject to the provisions of clause (b) of that
Article, which provides that nothing in sub-clause (g) of
Article 19 (1) shall affect the operation of any existing
law insofar as it imposes, or prevents the State from making
any law imposing, in the interests of the general public,
reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right
conferred by the said sub-clause. The affidavits filed on
behalf of the respondents show in unmistakable terms that
the impugned provisions of the Bombay Municipal Corporation
Act are in the nature of reasonable restrictions, in the
interests of the general public, on the exercise of the
right of hawkers to carry on their trade or business. No one
has any right to do his or her trade or business so as to
cause nuisance, annoyance or inconvenience to the other
members of the public. Public Streets, by their very
nomenclature and definition, are meant for the use of the
general public. They are not laid to facilitate the carrying
on of private trade or business. If hawkers were to be
conceded the right claimed by them, they could hold the
society to ransom by squatting on the centre of busy
thoroughfares, thereby paralysing all civic life. Indeed,
that is what some of them have done in some parts of the
city. They have made it impossible for the pedestrians to
walk on footpaths or even the streets properly so called.
In order to give the background and a full picture of
the recommendations made by the Commissioner, it would be
desirable to reproduce the letter of the Commissioner dated
September 30, 1983 to the Mayor of Bombay, who was the
Chairman of the Hawkers’ Committee. The Scheme proposed by
the Commissioner from part of that letter. That letter reads
as follows:
856
MDG/2418 30th
September, 1983
To
The Mayor of Bombay &
Chairman, Hawkers’ Committee,
Corporation Hall,
Bombay-400001.
Sub:-Creation of Hawking Zones
in Greater Bombay.
………
Dear Sir,
Kindly refer to my letter No. MDG/6638 dated 6th May
1983 on the above mentioned subject, of which you were kind
enough to circulate copies to the members of the Hawkers’
Committee, and recall the subsequent discussions held in the
meetings of the said Committee wherein, inter alia, the
proposals set out in that letter were discussed threadbare.
“During the discussion, it was pointed out by some
members, Shri Dharap in particular, that if, as proposed in
my aforesaid letter (dated 6th May 1983), ‘No Hawking Zones
or Areas’ are identified and declared as such, an impression
would be automatically created that the remaining
Zones/areas/streets are ‘Hawking Zones or Areas’, where
hawking would be freely permissible. In this connection, as
an analogy, it was pointed out that when the police declare
certain areas as ‘No parking Areas’, it automatically
follows that parking is permissible in the areas other than
those declared as ‘No parking Areas’. An apprehension was,
therefore, voiced that identification or declaration of
certain zones or areas as ‘No Hawking Zones or Areas’ may
give rise to rampant hawking activity in the remaining areas
and a demand for issue of licences freely to hawkers who
will mushroom in those areas. This will, it was stated,
defeat the main purpose viz. that of proper regulation of
hawkers and their activities.
857
I then clarified that it was never my intention that hawking
should be permitted freely in areas not covered by ‘No
Hawking Zones/Areas’, nor had I intended that additional
hawking licences should be given freely to hawkers to
operate in such remaining areas. It was then decided in the
meeting of the Hawkers’ Committee held on 13th September
1983 that I should resubmit my proposal with suitable
clarifications/modifications so as not to leave any room for
a wrong impression that hawking will be permissible in a
free and unchecked manner in certain areas. Accordingly. I
once again outline my proposal in the paragraphs below.
“As per the provisions of Section 61(o) of the Bombay
Municipal Corporation Act, the removal of obstructions and
projections in or upon streets, bridges and other public
places is an obligatory duty of the Corporation. The hawkers
together with their stalls or the objects which they sell
and which they exhibit in the stalls or on the
roads/pavements, constitute an obstruction/projection in or
upon streets and other public places. Their removal is,
therefore, an obligatory duty of the Corporation. Having
regard to our resources, human, physical and financial, it
is, however, obvious that we will not be able to fully
discharge this duty and remove the obstructions/projections
caused by hawkers on every road, lane or pavement in the
entire City of Greater Bombay. We should, therefore, decide
that within the constraints of our resources, we would
concentrate on the removal of such obstructions/projections
on certain streets and public places where the pedestrians
or vehicular traffic is most intense and where any
obstruction/projection on the street or pavement is likely
to cause great harm to public interest and cause nuisance.
For example, the roads leading from suburban Railway
Stations to the residential areas in the Suburbs or roads in
the Central Business District in South Bombay connecting the
Suburban Railway Stations with the offices and other places
of work as also certain arterial roads on which major goods
and public transport vehicles move, could be considered as
important roads and pavements where no hawkers should be
allowed to do their business. No doubt, at present, on these
roads/areas too, there are existing hawkers who were given
licences in the past but who now do constitute an
obstruction to the free and safe flow of pedestrian and
vehicular traffic. It will be possible to remove these
licensed hawkers by giving them alternative sites.
858
“Thus, having regard to the resources of vehicles,
staff etc. at our disposal, we could identify in each Ward
the streets/areas were intensive removal action against
unauthorised hawkers should be taken. This shall not,
however, mean that hawking in other areas will be freely
permitted. In areas other than the areas identified from
time to time, having regard to the resources available and
the dynamic situation, for intensive removal action, if
hawkers do their hawking business without seriously
affecting the vehicular and or pedestrian traffic or causing
nuisance, they may be tolerated by sufference and a daily
fee at the rate of Rs. 3 par day from a male hawker and at
the rate of Rs. 1 per day from a female hawker may be
recovered, without prejudice to our right to remove them
should the dynamic situation and the changed circumstances
so demand in future. It should be made explicitly clear at
the back of the receipt given for the fees recovered that
the collection of the fee shall not be deemed to confer any
right whatsoever on the hawker concerned to do his/her
hawking business at the site concerned.
“The following restrictions/conditione shall be imposed
on such hawkers:-
(i) They should do their hawking business only on an
area of 1 Mt. x 1 Mt. on the footpath wherever it exists or
on the extreme sides of the carriage way, in such a manner
that the vehicular and pedestrian traffic is not obstructed
and access to shops and residences is not blocked.
(ii) They should not put up any stall or place any
table, stand or such other thing or erect any type of
structure whatsoever on the pitch on which they are
conducting their hawking business nor should they hawk on
handcarts. They should also not put up any cloth, plastic
sheet, chaddar, tarpaulin etc. as shelter.
(iii) They should not hawk within 100 metres from any
place of worship; holy shrine, educational institution and
general hospital and within the periphery of 150 metres from
any Municipal or other market.
(iv) They should not create any noise for attracting
the public/customers.
859
(v) They should not hawk any cooked food articles, cut
fruits etc.
(vi) They should do their hawking business only between
7-00 A.M. and 9-00 P.M. on the day on which the prescribed
daily fee is recovered. In other words, payment of the
prescribed daily fee shall not be deemed to authorise them
to do their hawking business beyond the aforesaid hours.
(vii) They should extend full co-operation to Municipal
conservancy staff for cleaning the streets and footpaths and
also to other Municipal staff for carrying out any Municipal
work. They should also co-operate with other Government and
public agencies such as the B.E.S.T. Undertaking, Bombay
Telephones, B.S E.S. Ltd., etc. for laying cables or for
doing any repair/development work.
(viii) Recovery of prescribed daily fee shall not
bestow on them any right whatsoever over the space used by
them for hawking on the day on which the fee is recovered.
“I would request you to immediately circulate copies of
this letter to all the members of the Hawkers’ Committee and
to convene a meeting of the Committee very urgently for
consideration of the proposals set out herein.
Yours faithfully,
Sd/-(D.M. Sukthankar)
Municipal Commissioner.”
We have considered carefully the eight conditions
mentioned above, subject to which the Commissioner proposes
to grant licences the hawkers. No exception can be taken to
conditions (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (vii) and (viii) except
that conditions (ii) and (viii) require a little
clarification. The first part of condition (ii) beginning
with the words “They should not put up any stall” and ending
with the words “nor should they hawk on handcarts” may
stand. But, the second part of that condition should not be
construed to mean that the hawkers will not be entitled even
to protect their wares against
860
the sun, rain, wind and so on, by spreading a cloth, plastic
sheet, chaddar, tarpaulin etc. The object of that condition
is to ensure that no construction is put up and no handcarts
are used. In so far as condition No. (viii) is concerned,
all that it should be understood to mean is that the fact
that a daily fee is charged will not confer upon the Hawker
the right to do his business at any particular place. That
is because, the daily fee is a kind of license fee to do
business; it is not a fee charged for doing business at any
particular place. The Commissioner will, therefore, be free
to impose conditions (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (vii) and
(viii) while granting licenses to the hawkers in the Hawking
Zones, after making the necessary clarifications in
conditions (ii) and (viii). Condition (v) is an unreasonable
restriction on the hawkers’ right to carry on their trade or
business and must be dropped. There are several working
families in Bombay, belonging to different strata of
society, which depend upon the food supplied by hawkers. We
do not see any valid reason why hawkers should not be
allowed to sell cooked food, cut fruits and the like That
will, of course, not confer upon them the licence to sell
adulterated or unhygienic food They shall have to comply,
like any other vendor of food, with the Municipal licensing
regulations and the provisions of the Prevention of Food
Adulteration Act, 1954. Lastly the hours of business
mentioned in Condition (vi) should be from 7 A.M. to 10 P.M.
instead of 7 A.M. to 9 P.M, In cities like Bombay, nights
are quite young at 10 p.m.
In so far as Hawking and Non-Hawking Zones are
concerned, the Commissioner should adopt the following
modalities:
(a) As far as possible, there should be one Hawking
Zone for every who contiguous municipal wards in Greater
Bombay.
(b) The Non-Hawking Zones may be fixed by the Municipal
Commissioner in his discretion, in consultation with the
Bombay Municipal Corporation.
(c) In areas other than the Non-Hawking Zones, licenses
should be granted to the hawkers to do their business on
payment of the prescribed fee. That will be without
prejudice to the right of the Commissioner to extend the
limits of the Non-Hawking Zones in the interests of public
health, sanitation, safety, public convenience and the like.
861
(d) Hawking licences should not be refused in the
Hawking Zones except for good reasons. The discretion not
to grant a hawking licence in the Hawking Zone should be
exercised by the Commissioner reasonably and in public
interest.
(e) In future, before making any alteration in the
Scheme, the Commissioner should take into confidence all
public interests, including the hawkers, the Commissioner of
Police and representative associations of the public such as
the one which appeared before us. Hawkers have the right to
do their business, subject to reasonable restrictions in the
interests of the general public. The Police Commissioner is
in the best position to speak about the law and order
problem as well as the traffic hazards created by street
trading. The general public has a stake in showing how and
why the hawking trade should be regulated. The power
conferred upon the Commissioner by section 313-A of the Act
to grant licences to hawkers is in the nature of a
discretion coupled with a duty. It is therefore essential
that the said power should be exercised by consulting all
concerned interests and guided by considerations of what is
in the interests of the general public. The scheme framed by
the Commissioner will have a binding effect on all
concerned.
In the result, we direct that the Municipal
Commissioner will proceed to frame the final Scheme on the
lines suggested above, as expeditiously as possible. There
will be no order as to costs.
S.R. Petitions disposed off.
862