Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has pulled up the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) while hearing a plea by 25 street vendors that their carts had been seized following objections from the councillors to the non-vegetarian items’ sale and instructed the civic body to consider the cases “as expeditiously as possible”.
“What hurts the municipal corporation? What is your problem? You don’t like non-veg food, that is your lookout. How can you decide what I eat outside?” the High Court asked.
“Call the corporation commissioner and ask him what he is doing. Tomorrow they will say I should not have sugarcane juice because it causes diabetes? Or coffee (because it) is bad for health?” the High Court added addressing the government counsel.
The High Court made this observation earlier on Thursday while responding to submissions from the petitioners’ counsel that their carts were seized without any official order and because of adverse positions taken by the civic bodies in Vadodara, Surat, Bhavnagar, Junagadh and Ahmedabad besides the Rajkot Mayor’s remarks made earlier last month that carts selling non-vegetarian food hurt religious sentiments.
The government counsel also represented the Additional Chief Secretary of the Urban Housing and Urban Development Department, named as a respondent in the petition, apart from the state.
The High Court also instructed AMC Standing Counsel Satyam Chhaya to appear before it.
Standing Counsel Chhaya submitted that the petition has been filed “under some misconception” and that “there is no drive to remove all non-vegetarian (carts)”.
He submitted that the reason for removal, on taking the AMC’s instruction, was “encroachment on the road, which is a hindrance to public traffic or absolute blockage of pedestrians”.
The High Court, however, questioned if the encroachment removal was being undertaken under the guise of targeting non-vegetarian item sellers.
Referring to photos of blocked footpaths attached to the petition copy, the AMC Standing Counsel denied that this was the case.
“If there are encroachments, this has to go….but don’t just confiscate because today morning someone makes a statement that ‘from tomorrow I don’t want egg eateries around me’,” the High Court said.