Delhi's Nehru Place is a No Vending Zone, HC tells MCD to Clear it out

The Delhi High Court has firmly shut the door on two street vendors seeking the right to operate at Nehru Place's District Commercial Complex, dismissing their petition on March 24 and ordering the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to immediately evict all unauthorised vendors from the area, a zone that courts have repeatedly declared off-limits for hawking and vending.

The dispute traces back to 2016, when civic authorities removed the petitioners, Bachchu Singh and another, from vending spots near the Mansarovar Building at Nehru Place. The two claimed to have run stalls there since the early 2000s and invoked the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, to resist eviction. Their core argument, that they deserved statutory protection as established vendors. Courts, however, had consistently found otherwise, their names appeared on neither the Thareja Committee list (1992) nor the Chopra Committee list (1996), the two Supreme Court-sanctioned rosters of recognised vendors.

Undeterred, the duo repeatedly knocked on judicial doors, only to be turned away each time, including by the Supreme Court itself. This latest petition sought to restrain authorities from evicting them, but what the court discovered during the hearing made matters considerably worse: the vendors were still operating in the area, in open defiance of prior judicial orders.

A Division Bench of Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Justice Madhu Jain expressed unambiguous displeasure at the situation, finding that permitting vendors to operate at Nehru Place had already generated serious safety and security hazards, a concern underscored by a suo motu proceeding the High Court had initiated in 2021 following a fire at the complex. The bench found it deeply troubling that the petitioners continued to vend despite settled law on the matter, observing pointedly, "It is inexplicable as to how the Petitioners are being permitted to vend in the Nehru Place area."

The Court held that the petitioners possessed no legal entitlement to vend at Nehru Place, dismissed the petition with costs of Rs.10,000, directed the MCD to enforce a complete clearance of unauthorised vendors, and scheduled a compliance hearing for May 21.