HC orders BMC to remove unlicensed hawkers from Colaba Causeway

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday officially signed an order directing the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to evict all unlicensed hawkers in Colaba, under police protection.

The court had verbally asked the BMC to evict the unlicensed hawkers on March 26 after the civic body informed it that there were only 83 licensed hawkers in the area, as opposed to the 253 claimed by the Colaba Causeway Tourism Hawkers Stall Union (CCTHSU). The court had said it would sign the order on Monday after the union requested it to give the remaining 170 unlicensed hawkers time to vacate.

The official direction to evict the unlicensed hawkers, issued by the division bench of justices Ajay Gadkari and Kamal Khata, came after a long legal battle involving hawkers seeking protection from eviction.

The Clean Heritage Colaba Residents’ Association (CHCRA) had filed an intervention plea on March 20 seeking to be added as a party in an ongoing writ petition involving the CCTHSU, contending that illegal hawking activities were undermining their fundamental right to a clean and safe environment guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. The court had then directed the BMC to verify the authenticity of the CCTHSU’s claim that there were 253 licensed hawkers.

On Tuesday, the counsel for the hawkers’ union, Ankit Lohia, instructed by advocates Zainab R Shaikh and Rafiullah Shaikh, referred to an order passed by a division bench of justices BR Gavai and MS Karnik in November 2017 which underlined that the BMC’s hawker survey conducted on May 1, 2024, recorded that the expected eligible applicants in the city were found to be 2,908.

The union stated that apart from the 83 licensed hawkers, the remaining ones are also eligible for protection as they were surveyed by the BMC and, therefore, cannot be evicted.

However, the court went ahead and signed the eviction order.