SC restrains governments from taking action against hawkers

In a breather to urban street vendors and hawkers, the Supreme Court has restrained all states and Union Territories from taking any action against them and directed the governments to implement the 2009 national policy for their regulation.
"All the existing street vendors/hawkers operating across the country shall be allowed to operate till the exercise of registration and creation of vending/hawking zones is completed in terms of the 2009 policy on urban street vendors.
"Once that exercise is completed, they shall be entitled to operate only in accordance with the orders of the concerned Town Vending Committees(TVCs)," a bench of Justice G S Singhvi said.

It said that TVCs should be set up in each town which would consist of representatives of various organizations and street vendors and 30 percent of the representatives from the category of vendors shall be women.
The committees shall be free to divide the municipal areas in vending/hawking zones and sub-zones and for this purpose they may take assistance of experts in the field," the bench said.
"All street vendors/hawkers shall be registered in accordance with the 2009 Policy. Once registered, the street vendor/ hawker, shall be entitled to operate in the area specified by the TVC," the bench said.

The apex court said that the process of registration must be completed by the municipal authorities across the country within four months of the receipt of the direction by the Chief Secretaries of the States and Administrators of the Union Territories.