AMC commissioner IP Gautam had failed to formulate a scheme for rehabilitation of vendors.
AMC commissioner IP Gautam found himself at the receiving end of the high court's ire on Tuesday. The commissioner was reprimanded by a division bench of the Gujarat high court for failing to formulate a scheme to accommodate street vendors despite several observation made by the high court. The division bench comprised chief justice, SJ Mukhopadhya and justice AS Dave. On Tuesday, when Gautam appeared before the high court, he submitted a 3,000 page report prepared by CEPT for rehabilitation and settlement of street vendors.
However, justice Mukhopadhya and Dave reprimanded Gautam by telling him that the HC has directed the commissioner to frame schemes and not prepare reports. The division bench sought an honest reply as to whether the AMC has prepared the scheme or not. The bench said it would in future slap a fine on AMC officials for not complying with high court order.
The division bench also caustically asked if AMC officials did not immediately put into action any order from chief minister and if yes, why were they not taking the HC order seriously. The high court also directed the AMC to frame the scheme and submit it to the high court by March 3.
Moreover, the court broke into laughter when the chief justice said that the municipal commissioner, who had received various awards at national and state-level, (a fact that Mukhopadhya came to know through newspapers) was very poor in implementing high court order. To this justice Dave quipped.
"The AMC commissioner is a good officer, but he is bad litigant." This again sent the court into laughter. As per case details, Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) had filed a petition in the high court for framing and implementation of a scheme for rehabilitation and settlement of street vendors in 2006.
In a reply to the petition, the high court observed that the AMC should frame a policy under a national policy and for this SEWA, AMC, AUDA should first meet and sort out the grievances.
However, despite the court observation no meeting between AMC and SEWA took place. To this the court passed another order in 2007, directing the corporation to hold a meeting.
Later, the AMC submitted an affidavit before the high court stating that to frame the scheme they have contacted CEPT University and the draft scheme would be submitted by September 2009. Manali Shah of SEWA said, "We want a draft scheme for rehabilitation of street vendors and not a policy." Shah said that the city has more than 88,000 street vendors in Ahmedabad and it was necessary to protect their livelihood.
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