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SC Taj Mahal order a partial win for 71 Agra shopkeepers
The association at Taj Mahal had initially filed an interlocutory application (an application to court in any suit, appeal or proceeding already instituted in such court) no. 487 of 2009 in the ongoing writ petition (civil) no. 13381 of 1984, MC Mehta versus Union of India, a much talked about public interest litigation filed before the Supreme Court to save the Taj Mahal from pollution.
The Supreme Court’s Monday order on business activities around the Taj Mahal came on a recent petition filed by an association of 71 shopkeepers who were removed from the western side of the monument in 1993. After nearly two-decade-long efforts, there was some respite for these shopkeepers, who had accused Agra Development Authority of giving them a ‘step-motherly treatment’ by replacing only them from the monument’s vicinity.
“We’ve been fighting for our rights for the past two decades after we were dispossessed from our properties on the Taj Mahal premises. There were no security concerns in the old days as even our forefathers ran shops near the (monument’s) western gate, which continued till the 1980s,” said Amar Singh Rathore, president of Taj Western Gate Market Association, which went to the Supreme Court against ADA.
The association at Taj Mahal had initially filed an interlocutory application (an application to court in any suit, appeal or proceeding already instituted in such court) no. 487 of 2009 in the ongoing writ petition (civil) no. 13381 of 1984, MC Mehta versus Union of India, a much talked about public interest litigation filed before the Supreme Court to save the Taj Mahal from pollution.
“We are 71 shopkeepers in the association and had our shops on the Taj premises since the 1950s, but were removed and relocated outside the western gate first in 1993 and then again in 1998. These shops were shifted to a new location near ‘Amrud Ka Tila’, a site on the western side of the Taj Mahal, in 2000,” Rathore added.
“In 2007, Agra Development Authority (ADA) moved a proposal to build a complex for the shopkeepers. It was also supposed to provide water, electricity, toilet and road facilities to these shop owners, but the promise never materialised. The size of each shop was so small, 4.02 square meters to be precise, that there was space for only one person to stand,” Rathore complained.
In March 2007, ADA asked Housing Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) to design a restructuring plan for the 71 shops near the parking area of the western gate, which is 500-metre away from the Taj’s boundary wall. The Supreme Court, in its order dated 7.12.1998, stated that the building plan for any construction shall be filed in Court and construction would be raised only after approval by it.
“Our association filed IA (interlocutory application) No. 487 in 2009, but ADA, despite getting funds from the tourism department for construction of a market, did nothing for the shopkeepers. Instead, it constructed Taj Restaurant near the western gate of the Taj Mahal and did not even remove other shops located on outer wall of the Taj Mahal that adjoins western gate. Taj Restaurant continues to run from the location that faces the western gate of the Taj,” Rathore added.
He alleged that the ADA also arbitrarily increased the licence fee for the 71 shops from ₹400 per month to ₹3,000 per month with retrospective effect, “which is why we filed another interlocutory application in July this year on which the Monday order was passed.”
In an order released on Monday, the top court allowed a plea which had sought a directive to the authorities concerned for prohibiting commercial activities in the 500-metre periphery of the 17th-century monument.
The court, however, declined the remedy sought as another prayer in the interlocutory application filed in July, whereby directions were sought for ADA not to charge an exorbitant licence fee of ₹3,000 per month. It only allowed liberty to the association to work out the remedies in this regard.
