Gujarat High Court seeks state govt, AMC reply on vendor rehabilitation in Odhav

After a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the non-rehabilitation of 166 vendors of Maheshwari Vegetable Market in Odhav came up for hearing, the Gujarat High Court on Tuesday sought a reply from the state government and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). The division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice VM Pancholi directed the state and the corporation to submit their reply by December 5.

Petitioner Rajkumar Kori, through his counsel SH Iyer, had submitted before the court that the vendors, who were carrying out their business from an open, vacant land in Rabari Colony in Odhav for the past 30 years, were restrained from doing so by police and AMC. This deprived them from earning their livelihood. As per the case details, the vendors came to know that the land on which they were carrying out business was likely to be allotted for construction of either government or private building. The vendors had submitted a representation to the then chief minister in February 2010 demanding rehabilitation.

Following the representation, the city mamlatdar surveyed the vacant land and submitted a report to the district collector in which he recommended that on humanitarian grounds, the vendors should be rehabilitated to a vacant plot opposite the one from where they were evicted. It was the contention of the petitioner that despite the recommendation of the mamlatdar, the district administration did not initiate any action and therefore, they had to move the high court to seek rehabilitation as per the provisions of the Street Vendors Act.