Provide for parking or face sealing, Gujarat high court tells CG Road shops

A division bench of Gujarat high court has set the deadline of January 21 for the shop owners of CG Road to come up with a solution to the parking problem on the posh road.

There are 60 buildings and about 5,000 commercial units that are likely to face sealing in case the shop owners fail to provide the parking space by the deadline. 

The chief justice of the high court ruled on Tuesday that the CG Road Shop Owners Association had to come up with the solution by January 21 else the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) would resume its drive of sealing the shops and offices.

The division bench, headed by chief justice SJ Mukhopadhaya, was hearing a contempt petition filed by one Shivlal Purohit through his lawyer Amit Panchal. He filed the contempt petition regarding non-compliance of the high court order directing action against illegal construction, illegal parking, encroachment, cattle menace and fire safety issues.

Earlier, the high court had issued a stay on the sealing drive as the association assured that they would buy a plot on or off CG Road to develop a parking facility.

However, during the previous hearing, the association sought time to identify and buy the plot on the ground that many shop and office owners were not contributing to funds meant to buy the plot. On Tuesday, the chief justice told the counsel of the association:  "From last two or three dates (hearings), you are saying that some of members are not co-operating. We are not concerned with that, we just want compliance of the order."