SANJAY AGARWAL Vs. NAGAR MAHAPALIKA ALLAHABAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these matters which have been listed before the Court basically raise one issue on what the concept of a public road is. In answering this question, will see the resolution of all the cases. This Court is taking up writ petition No. 3119 of 1987 Sanjay Agarwal v. Nagar Mahapalika, Allahabad as the leading case, as this has presented two issues. First the petitioner contends that public streets are not meant to be encroached and, secondly, now Tehbazari cannot be conducted on public roads and streets.

(2.) The petitioner, Sanjay Agarwal, is a rate payer. He contends that he pays taxes to the Nagar Mahapalika, Allahabad, as it was known previously (now Nagar Nigam, Allahabad). The contention of the petitioner is that he has access to every inch of his property and no one may question him from which point or place he may have access from his property, to the public road for his egress or ingress. Thereafter, he contends that the action of the respondents in setting up squatters which has taken the shape of a vegetable market is illegal. He contends that this Tehbazari which has been running parallel to his property is on the side walk of a public road. This is public nuisance, he contends, and he prays that the vegetable market in front of his property be removed or shifted. In so far as the last request is concerned, the petitioner relies on a resolution which the local administration had passed on 4/11/1986 (Annexure RA-1). The petitioner contends that he normally would not have filed a writ petition before the High Court as he was under a legitimate expectation that the local administration has resolved the issue by taking a decision that the vegetable market, on which Tehbazari is being collected by the respondents, will be shifted from the present place in front of his house to another location near about the State carpentry school towards north. In this connection, the petitioner has placed before the Court a resume of proceedings recording the minutes of the local administration of several agendas at the relevant time by which certain city problems had seen a solution. In so far as the petitioner is concerned, it is contended, that he is concerned only with Item No. 3. For the purposes of record, Item No. 3 is reproduced below :

(3.) The contention of the petitioner, Sanjay Agarwal, is that once this decision had been taken he was anticipating and had confidence that local Government will shift the vegetable vendors and the consequential Tehbazari away and elsewhere, from its present place in front of his premises and on the side walk (patri) along the public road and his boundary wall. Finding that the respondents were taking their own time in shifting this vegetable hawkers market, he was left with no option, but to approach the High Court in its prerogative writ jurisdiction for the purposes of seeking a mandamus requiring the local administration to perform its statutory duty (a) to remove the nuisance of occupation of a public road, pathway and pavement, (b) to give him access to every inch of his property from egress and ingress and (c) keep the public streets and roads free from any encroachments only for the purpose for which it had been laid out, that is, passage.