Encroachments in Mani Majra motor market under High Court lens
Saurabh Malik
Chandigarh, February 8
Encroachments in the Mani Majra motor market have come under judicial scanner with a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court issuing notice of motion to the Union Territory of Chandigarh and its functionaries on a petition filed in public interest in the matter.
Taking up the petition, the Bench of Acting Chief Justice GS Sandhawalia and Justice Lapita Banerji made it clear that the case would be taken up with a similar matter pertaining to the Sector 48 motor market on April 4.
The matter was brought to the high court’s notice by advocate Devansh Khanna, who appeared in person before the Bench in the petition against the UT and other respondents. He was, among other things, seeking directions to the respondents to take immediate steps for removing encroachments in the Mani Majra motor market as it was causing “a lot of nuisance and inconvenience to the public at large”. He added that it was also raising “serious safety and health-related concerns” for the area residents, shopkeepers, vendors and mechanics.
Khanna also submitted that Article 21 of the Constitution of India guaranteed fundamental right to life. In broader terms, the right to life also included pliable roads for movement from one place to another. “If such sort of chaos remains in the market due to encroachment, it endangers the life of every commuter on the road,” he added.
Khanna added that every municipal corporation had a statutory obligation to ensure free flow of traffic and to have encroachments removed, especially the ones which were a constant source of “unhygienic ecology”, traffic hazard, a risk to the lives of people residing in the vicinity and even the visitors.
The advocate added that the questions of law requiring adjudication by the Bench were whether the non-removal of the encroachment by the respondents was violative of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, “which encompassed in itself the right to safe, secure, hygienic and encroachment-free street”, and whether “manifest injustice” had been caused to the public at large due to the illegal encroachment in the Mani Majra motor market. Another issue for consideration by the court was whether the inaction by the authorities on the petitioner’s representations sustainable in the eyes of the law, he added.
