Smart City: HC extends stay on eviction order against shop owners

Madurai: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court on Tuesday extended the interim stay on the eviction order issued to vendors at the commercial complex near Periyar bus stand till December 11.
A division bench of justice R Subbiah and justice T Krishnavalli was hearing a batch of petitions filed in this regard against the shops being evicted as part of the Madurai Smart City project.
The bench also directed the additional advocate general to get instructions from the authorities concerned if an alternate place for the 450 vendors have been identified.
Petitioner R V Rajaram, who is the president of one of the merchants’ association, said the corporation issued an eviction order on October 22 without issuing any notice to the association or its members.
The order was issued in the guise of notice to evict shops within 15 days of the date of receipt of the order.
“In the order, the corporation made a statement to the effect that officials had a consultation with our association. But, they neither had consulted is nor issued a notice. For reasons best known to the corporation, it has made false statements in the order,” the petitioner stated.
The petition stated that the livelihood of 10,000 people was dependent on these shops and sought for the re-development to be carried in two phases.
“The corporation ought not to carry out re-development of Periyar bus stand and nearby complex bus stand work under a single phase thereby evicting shops on 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 the entire shops, the corporation would affect the right to life of the members of the association.
The petitioners also pointed out that they will extend full cooperation to the corporation for the development of the Periyar bus stand, but they have not been kept in the loop about the new allotments and this has made them apprehensive.