Bharat Chauhan,
In the wake of sealing of 25 shops in Sadar Bazar recently and having apprehensions of more such actions, the Confederation of All Indus Traders ( CAIT) today in a petition submitted to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has urged for his immediate intervention towards and called for an Amnesty Scheme to protect Delhi traders from the axe of any further action sealing and demolitions which is being faced by them since last 14 years. In its petition, the CAIT said that on the basis of regularisation of 1700 unauthorised colonies of Delhi, an Amnesty Scheme for the traders will be most appropriate step of the Government which will be benefited to not only lakhs of traders but will also ensure livelihood of more than 30 lakh of their employees. The CAIT said that such Amnesty Scheme should have a specified cut off date and whatever position that stands on the specified date should be granted a status quo but before specifying the cut off date, all sealed shops in Delhi must be de-sealed. The CAIT said that the status quo can be allowed to continue either by a Bill to be passed in the Parliament or through an Ordinance or through any other legal manner which the Government deem fit.The development norms could be specified separately for such shops/areas falling under Amnesty Scheme and reasonable regularisation charges may also be prescribed for availing the benefit of Amnesty Scheme.
The copy of the petition sent to the Prime Minister has also been sent to Home Minister Shri Amit Shah, Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh, Urban Development Minister Shri Hardeep Puri, Commerce Minister Shri Piyush Goyal and Delhi Lt. Governor Shri V K Saxena.
CAIT National President Mr B C Bhartia and Secretary General Mr Praveen Khandelwal in the petition said that it is a matter of record that non timely implementation of earlier Master Plans of 1962, 1981 and 2006 and due to lethargic attitude of the concerned multiple Authorities who have utterly failed in discharging their responsibilities those were spelled out in all three earlier Master Plans, the trade of Delhi was developed by traders in an unstructured way to meet the requirements of people of Delhi. Even the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development had filed an Affidavit in the Supreme Court in 2008 and admitted that various Agencies were able to develop only 16% of the commercial space in Delhi in the past four decades which is ample evidence of dereliction of duties by the concerned Authorities.
Both trade leaders further said the Hon’ble Supreme Court constituted a Monitoring Committee for specific purposes but the said Monitoring Committee with its arbitrary and adamant nature of working assumes the status of an extra administrative Authority and bye passed the Municipal Corporation of Delhi Act,1957 which is a law passed by the Parliament and obligatory for everyone to comply with the law. It is further to be noted that the Hon’ble Supreme Court has never stayed or questioned the applicability of the said Act.
