From rxpgnews.com
Court grants relief to traders, schools
By Indo Asian News Service,
Nov 23, 2006 - 7:11:56 PM
New Delhi, Nov 23 (IANS) The Supreme Court Thursday gave relief till Jan 31 to over 18,000 traders in the capital and allowed 1,700 schools operating from residential areas to continue till May next year.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal ruled that traders who had given undertakings to the court-appointed monitoring committee that they would stop commercial activity in residential areas could continue on giving a fresh affidavit by Jan 31, 2007.
It ruled that their continuance would be subject to the result of the judgement on the petitions challenging the validity of the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act 2006, which sought a one-year moratorium on all sealing and demolition operations in the capital.
The bench passed the order on an application filed by the central government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for a direction to treat all the traders on par, whether they had given undertakings to close down or not.
Though the central government sought protection for about 25,000 traders operating from residential areas, only about 18,400 filed affidavits before the monitoring committee stating that they had voluntarily stopped the misuse of the property.
The bench made it clear that the benefit of protection would be available only to these 18,400 traders who had filed affidavits.
The court empowered the monitoring committee to proceed with sealing operations of those businesses not covered by the Sep 7 and 15 notifications allowing continuance of commercial activity in over 2,000 roads and streets.
Taking a sympathetic view, the court permitted over 1,700 schools to continue till May 2007, the end of the current academic year, so that about 800,000 children studying in these schools would not face any difficulty.
The bench directed the central and Delhi governments to come out with a comprehensive plan on businesses in the capital, taking into consideration the parking needs, the availability of amenities like water and electricity as well as the impact of development on various environmental laws. It granted six weeks time for filling the draft plan in this regard.
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