MEGHALAYA & GREATER SHILLONG PROGRESSIVE HAWKERS & STREET VENDORS ASSOCIATION Vs. STATE OF MEGHALAYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals and writ petitions pertain to street-vending, primarily in Shillong and the surrounding areas. Several hawkers or hawkers' bodies have come up complaining against the State or the local authorities in seeking to organise the business or demarcating prohibited areas or the like.

(2.) Despite there being a Central statute pertaining to streetvending, hawking and the like, the State introduced its own enactment and formulated rules thereunder. The substance of the challenge in the two appeals arising out of a common writ petition and in the three other independent writ petitions appears to be somewhat similar.

(3.) The matters have remained pending for a considerable period of time since the State was contemplating to adopt the Central statute and jettison its own. The State has now formally done so and has also made rules or is in the process of completing the making of rules for implementing the Central statute in the State. Further, taking a cue from observations of the Court and upon noticing several crowded areas being overrun by hawkers and the pavements not being available for pedestrians, certain new regulations have been issued.