Starting with nine restaurants, there are now over 100 eateries in Hauz Khas Village, and some of them run without proper licences. The complaint before the Delhi High Court was brought by Pankaj Sharma, saying that these eateries are safety hazards, with any one of them springing a breakout of fire in a residential area.
On Tuesday (August 22), the high court ordered an inspection of the area, jointly by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation and Delhi Police. The inspection shall end by September 3 and its report should be filed before the next hearing on September 5, the court said.
Two issues were discussed here. One was the right to life, and the other was the right to run a business. The bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Hari Shankar made it clear that while legal businesses with valid licences had the right to run their businesses, there has to be a balance maintained.
The counsel on behalf of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) stated that there has been no threat to the life of the people in the area.
Justice Shankar grilled the counsel, saying: “We can’t wait till such time when actually a threat occurs. An apprehension of any casualty such as a fire is enough to have threat on right guaranteed under Article 21.”
The counsel stated that they have the consent of the Delhi Police. This consent is required to run a restaurant and bar as per Section 401 & 407 of the MCD Act, and Section 28 read with Section 112 of the Delhi Police Act. The counsel also said that in 2006 a survey was conducted and some roads in the area were notified as commercial and “that is where we are running our businesses.”
The applicant submitted that only nine restaurants were permitted at that time, but right now the number of restaurant exceeds 100.
When the counsel on behalf of the restaurants submitted that without giving them notice they have been handed a closure notice, the applicant submitted that there were 64 restaurants running without any licence and they should be shut immediately.
—India Legal Bureau