Police can't pick and choose hawkers when taking action: HC

The police cannot "pick and choose" street vendors while detaining them for hawking in non-squatting areas in the city, the Delhi High Court said today.
A bench of justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel made the observation while hearing a habeus corpus plea moved on behalf of three street vendors who were detained by the police for over 24 hours for sitting in a non-hawking area at the Lajpat Nagar market in South Delhi.
Considering the view taken by the court, Delhi Police told the bench that it will drop the proceedings against the three hawkers and they would be released from detention immediately.

Initially, the police said that these hawkers could be released if they furnished a bond.
The court did not agree with this and asked the police why only these three out of several hundred street vendors were detained. "This cannot happen. They (police) cannot pick and choose," it said.
Police defended its action saying it had received a complaint from shopkeepers that some hawkers were squatting in a non-squatting zone and when they did not leave on being asked, they were detained.

"What they (police) say is not the truth. This cannot be the truth. Why out of 100-200 hawkers, only three were picked up," the court said.

It further said that after the 1996 bomb blasts in the market, no one was supposed to be squatting there and added that the current issue of street vendors hawking everywhere "was a creation" of police and the municipal corporations. The blasts on May 21, 1996 had led to the loss of 13 lives.
The bench said that corporations, police and even traffic police were "blind" to the vendors hawking on the streets, leading to congestion on the roads.
The court said that even the hawkers were to be blamed for the prevailing situation as they were happy with the authorities as long as they were protected and if the protection is taken away, then they called the authorities bad.