SHILLONG, May 8: The High Court of Meghalaya has added the Meghalaya and Greater Shillong Progressive Hawkers and Street Vendors’ Association as a respondent party in the PIL on identifying street vending areas, relocating areas permitted to be used for street vending, regulating traffic in general, allocating and relocating parking spaces, and clearing as much road area as possible to allow free movement of vehicles.
The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice I.P. Mukerji and Justice W. Diengdoh directed that the respondents should, on a war footing, implement the policies, plans, and proposals contained in a report filed in the court. These plans included demarcation of parking and no-parking zones, acquisition of 35 state-of-the-art buses to reduce private transport on the city roads and Shared Mobility Initiative (STEMS) project to enable school children to avail of buses to go to school, reducing vehicular traffic, apart from the identification and regulation of parking zones, street vending areas and preventing road rule violation by drivers, punishment for offenders, and so on.
Earlier, the court said that by May 6, the Commissioner and Secretary of the Urban Affairs Department should file another report showing further action which had been taken.
On Thursday, the AAG appearing for the respondents filed an action taken report prepared by the Commissioner and Secretary. The report, with several documents and photographs attached, was taken on record.
The court granted leave to the petitioner to peruse the report and file an affidavit in response.
On the prayer of counsel P. Yobin, the Court added the Meghalaya and Greater Shillong Progressive Hawkers and Street Vendors’ Association as a party in the PIL.
