How can A’bad civic body decide what we should eat outside: HC

How can A’bad civic body decide what we should eat outside: HC

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad: 10.12.2021

The Gujarat high court took the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to task on Thursday for its recent drive against street carts selling non-vegetarian food, questioning how citizens could be stopped from “eating what they want” just because “somebody in power thinks this is what they want you to do”.

“You don’t like non-vegetarian food? That is your outlook. How can you (AMC) decide what we should eat outside?” Justice Biren Vaishnav asked the municipal counsel. “Tomorrow, you will decide what I should eat outside?”

The judge said the AMC must not act on the whims of elected representatives. “Around the Vastrapur lake, hawkers are selling eggs and omelettes. Overnight, you will pick them up and send them away because the party in power says that they don’t want people to eat eggs? Ask your commissioner to remain present (in court) and answer (the question). How dare you indiscriminately pick up people like this and seize their assets?” he said.

“Don’t undertake a drive to satisfy the ego of some people...Tomorrow they will tell me not to take sugarcane juice because it causes diabetes, or that coffee is bad for health.”

Justice Vaishnav was responding to a petition filed by a group of street vendors against the civic body’s campaign last month to stop them from selling non-vegetarian food. Terming the drive tantamount to “bigotry”, the vendors demanded that their carts and stalls be returned to allow them to resume business. They said the municipal authorities had declared the carts wouldn’t be returned before 45 days.

DRIVE AGAINST NON-VEG: The AMC claimed there was no discrimination and their action was an anti-encroachment drive