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GANGULY, J.

1. Hawking on the streets of Delhi, whose municipal limits have expanded over the years, has been the subject matter of several proceedings in this Court. Initially in the early sixties, this problem surfaced when this Court, hearing an appeal from a decision dated 4th August, 1966 of the Punjab High Court, Circuit Bench at Delhi, dealt with this question in some detail in the case of Pyare Lal vs. New Delhi Municipal Committee and another [AIR 1968 SC 133]. In Pyare Lal (supra), sale of cooked food on public streets which was creating the problems of unhygienic conditions came up before this Court in the context of a resolution of the New Delhi Municipal Committee stopping such sale. A three-Judge Bench of this Court held that no person carrying on the aforesaid business of selling cooked food has any fundamental right to carry on street vending particularly in a manner which creates unsanitary and unhygienic conditions in the neighbourhood.

2. However, the controversy did not rest there, nor did the problem of hawking come to an end in view of Pyare Lal's judgment.

3. Several cases were filed thereafter in different Courts and ultimately the leading decision was rendered in the case of Sodan Singh and others vs. New Delhi Municipal Committee and others [(1989) 4 SCC 155] by a Constitution Bench of this Court.

4. In Sodan Singh (supra) the petitioners, as hawkers, were carrying on business by squatting on the pavements of Delhi and New Delhi and those squatters alleged that they were allowed by the Municipality to carry on such business on payment of charges described as Tehbazari. As the Municipal Authority subsequently refused to permit them to continue their business, that action of the municipality according to those petitioners, interfered with their fundamental right to carry on business under Articles 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution of India. The correctness of the decision in Pyare Lal (supra) was also doubted. As such the matter was placed before the Constitution Bench.

66. Certain broad facts cannot be lost sight of. Whatever power this Court may have had, it possibly cannot, in the absence of a proper statutory framework, control the ever increasing population of this country. Similarly this Court cannot control the influx of people to different metro cities and towns in search of livelihood in the background of the huge unemployment problem in this country. While there is a burning unemployment on one hand, on the other hand there is a section of our people, that, having regard to its ever increasing wealth and financial strength, is buying any number of cars, scooters and three wheelers. No restriction has apparently been imposed by any law on such purchase of cars, three wheelers, scooters and cycles. There is very little scope for expanding the narrowing road spaces in the metropolitan cities and towns in India. Therefore, the problem is acute. On the one hand there is an exodus of fleeting population to metro cities and towns in search of employment and on the other hand with the ever increasing population of cars and other vehicles in the same cities, the roads are choked to the brim posing great hazards to the interest of general public. In the midst of such near chaos the hawkers want to sell their goods to make a living. Most of the hawkers are very poor, a few of them may have a marginally better financial position. But by and large they constitute an unorganized poor sector in our society. Therefore, structured regulation and legislation is urgently necessary to control and regulate fundamental right of hawking of these vendors and hawkers.

67. This Court finds that innumerable IAs have been filed in this Court along with various objections by the hawkers, most of the time collectively, complaining about steps taken by municipal authorities, namely, NDMC and MCD to prevent them from hawking and vending. This Court has tried its best to somehow deal with the situation. But it is difficult for this Court to tackle this huge problem in the absence of a valid law. The nature of the problem defies a proper solution by this Court by any judicially manageable standards.