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Balbir Singh vs. Municipal Corporation of Delhi

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:8058-DBDecided 17 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
W.P.(C) 13631/2026CNR: DLHC010442262026
Justice Prathiba M. Singh · Justice Vikas Mahajan

Background

The petitioner, a street vendor who claimed to have bought vending rights ("Tehbazari") to a stall near the Red Fort back in 1988, was evicted when the site was demolished for the Delhi Metro project in 2012, and has been seeking an alternate vending site or formal mutation of his vending rights ever since, through multiple rounds of prior litigation, a contempt case, and repeated requests to the MCD's Town Vending Committee, which kept deferring the matter pending its own reconstitution.

Decision Breakdown

The Court noted that the Town Vending Committee-II (TVC-II), the body legally empowered to decide such allotments under the Street Vendors Act, 2014, had by now finally completed its elections and was close to being formally constituted, and that a fresh survey of old Tehbazari holders was underway. The Court directed that the petitioner be allowed to participate in that survey with his supporting documents, that his name be included if his documents check out, that the newly constituted TVC-II decide within three months whether to formally recognize the transfer of vending rights to him, and that a vending site be allotted to him once the overall vending plan is finalized, if he is found eligible.

Lesson Learnt

Street vendors displaced by public infrastructure projects have a right to have their claims for alternate sites formally considered under the statutory vending-plan process, even a years-long bureaucratic stalemate can be resolved by the court setting concrete deadlines for the responsible committee to act.

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