New Delhi: Just days after Delhi High Court came down heavily on traders “holding the city to ransom” in order to usher in amendments to Delhi’s master plan, a traders association has now written to the Delhi Chief Minister to “convene a special session of the Legislative Assembly and bring an Ordinance to immediately stop the sealing.”
Confederation of All India Traders who had earlier protested against MCD’s sealing drive and had called a two-day shutdown in early February has now requested Kejriwal that an ordinance be brought in to stop the sealing drive.
“Delhi Government should bring an Ordinance to immediately stop the sealing and restore due process of law or convene a special session of the Legislative Assembly immediately to pass a Bill imposing a moratorium on sealing without following the due process of law,” reads the letter to Kejriwal.
The traders association has also demanded that Government should notify 351 Roads as commercial or mixed land use immediately to provide relief to traders and formalities, if any, should be completed immediately. Recently, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar observed that by sitting on a dharna “you can get the master plan changed”.
“Not because it is required nor after checking if the city can handle it. It is done because a few hundred people sit on a dharna. “The master plan is being amended because the traders have held the city to ransom by pulling down their shutters,” it said and asked the authorities whether an environment impact assessment was conducted before proposing to amend the Master Plan-2021.
The Master Plan-2021 is a blueprint for urban planning and expansion in the metropolis to ensure overall development and the proposed amendments were for bringing a uniform floor area ratio (FAR) for shop-cum-residential plots and complexes on par with residential plots.
The association has now claimed that “due process of law as prescribed under The Municipal Corporation of Delhi Act, 1957 is not being followed.”
“As per the provisions, no complaint has been made with Municipal Magistrate in prescribed time limit by the Municipal Commissioner and enshrined Rights for the issuance of any Show Cause Notice, Right to make an appeal to the Appellate Tribunal and thereafter Administrator of Delhi have been completely devoid,” CAIT Chairman Praveen Khandelwal told News18. CAIT has earlier demanded that a special task force be constituted to properly implement the ‘Delhi Master Plan’.
"We demand a special task force under the Delhi Governor comprising senior officials of the Ministry of Urban Development and Delhi government and even officials of the Delhi Police. This committee must be mandated to see the effective implementation of the master plan and protection of traders from sealing. It should be a time-bound programme and is necessary, because in Delhi, we have multiple authorities and hence it will get everyone on board and speed up the process," Parveen Khandelwal, CAIT Chairman told News18.
The drive to seal commercial establishments that are flouting provisions of the 2021 Master Plan began on January 7 at the Khan Market on the orders of a Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee. According to the plan, traders using properties for mixed purposes were required to pay a one-time conversion charge at the rate notified by the Delhi government.
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