Interim stay on Madurai Corpn order to evict shops in Periyar bus stand

Madurai: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court has stayed the eviction order issued to vendors at the commercial complex near Periyar bus stand based on a petition by the merchant’s welfare association. According to the association, there are 450 licensed shops functioning in the complex near the bus stand for four decades now and they are being evicted as part of the Madurai Smart City project.
According to the petitioner, R V Rajaram, president of the merchants’ association, the corporation issued an eviction order on October 22 without issuing any notice to the association or its members. The eviction order was issued in the guise of notice to evict shops within 15 days from the date of receipt of the order.
“In the order, the corporation made a statement to the effect that it had a consultation with our association. But, it neither had consultation nor issued notice. For reasons best known to the corporation, it has made false statements in the order,” the petitioner stated.
The petition pointed out that the tender process has not been finalised. Stating that the livelihood of as many as 10,000 people are dependent on these shops, the petition stated that they have no issues with the project, but want it to be carried out in two phases.
“The corporation ought not to carry out re-development of Periyar bus stand and complex bus stand work under a single phase thereby evicting shops in both bus stands. Instead, the same can be done in two phases, thereby shops at one bus stand maybe shifted to other bus stand until one phase gets over,” the petitioner stated and noted that by evicting all shops, the corporation would affect the right to life of the members of the association.
Justice V Bhavani Subbaroyan before whom the petition came for hearing granted interim stay for two weeks on the eviction order issued by the corporation.