The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has announced the waiver of penalties imposed for late payment of license fees. This comes after Rizwan Khan, a sugarcane juice vendor, approached the Bombay High Court with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in August saying that the BMC was asking hawkers and vendors to pay the full license fees while also imposing penalties for late payment of the same. This came as street vendors and hawkers weren’t allowed to open during the lockdown even as other sectors were allowed to open.
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The petitioner was represented by Advocate Mayur Faria, who received late communication that the policy decision by the BMC was taken on September 9 this year, whereas the original revised petition was filed in August. However, the policy change was officially communicated only on October 29 which is around 50 days from the date of the decision.
Khan says that the penalty waiver would result in a savings of nearly ₹7,000 per vendor. According to information attached with Khan’s PIL, the BMC sought ₹12,000 from the vendor between April to July this year. Of this amount, only Rs 2,000 is said to the penalty amount, suggesting that license fees are a much bigger dent on the street vendors and hawkers.
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Despite receiving some clarity on the BMC’s change in policy, Khan has continued to go ahead with the contempt petition filed in mid-October as details of the policy change weren’t intimated to either him or his counsel Faria.
Khan said that he will continue with the contempt petition because there was no clarification from the BMC on the waiver of license fees as the civic body has only waived the penalties so far.
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