Can't club issues of illegal hawkers & homeless: Bombay HC

MUMBAI: The problem of the homeless is global, observed the Bombay high court on Friday while declining to club the issue of homeless on Mumbai's footpaths with that of encroachment by illegal hawkers in a public interest litigation.
"They may be less fortunate, but they are human beings," Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale told the Bombay Bar Association (BBA), a body comprising lawyers practising in the high court.
In November 2022, the Bombay high court had converted a petition regarding illegal hawkers obstructing access to a Borivali shop into a suo motu public interest litigation to ensure "encroachments on public access ways and footpaths do not occur".
The lawyers' association sought to intervene in this public interest litigation so that the authorities, including BMC, can be directed to remove "vagrants/ encroachers" from footpaths and sidewalks in and around Flora Fountain and right outside high court. It attached several pictures to its application.
The judges said the application by the lawyers' body is distinct from the PIL which is regarding illegal hawkers and these are people, coming from different parts, driven to the streets in Mumbai to forage for a living as best as they can. "You want them to be thrown out? Are you telling us the city must get rid of its poor? The problem of the homeless is global. They are in New York... Washington.. Paris. We must have a solution. They need shelter," said Justice Patel.
Senior advocate Milind Sathe, for BBA, said, "This is the story of Mumbai," and that "somebody has to take action". The judges said "they (the homeless) may not be your care" and added that "they are human beings".
Sathe said BBA shares the court's concern but "unless this is stopped, to begin with, this problem will grow." He said night shelters should be provided in Mumbai, like in Delhi. The judges said they are looking at structures installed on footpaths and not the "poor of this city". "We cannot club this issue with that," said Justice Patel.
In the order, the judges said they have not suggested that the issue raised by BBA is "trivial" and added that each city has to deal with the problem of the homeless in "a manner best suited to that city". They permitted BBA to file a separate writ petition/PIL.
BBA application said "vagrants/encroachers carry on their day-to-day activities like sleeping across the footpath, answering nature's call, drying clothes/utensils, storing goods and generally causing nuisance in an around the encroached area over which the public have a right of passage/access.''