Judgement

MITTER, J. :- These are seven appeals by special leave from a judgment and order of the Punjab High Court in a Letters Patent Appeal from a judgment and order of a single Judge dated April 7, 1966.

2. The facts in all these appeals bear a close resemblance and these cases were dealt with by a common judgment of the High Court. The facts in Appeal No. 486 of 1967 i. e. Pyare Lal s case, as laid in his petition, may be stated by way of specimen. By his petition dated October 12, 1965 Pyare Lal moved the Punjab High Court for the issue of a writ or direction restraining the New Delhi Municipal Committee from interfering with his right to carry on his trade at the site referred to in paragraph 1 of his petition or, at any rate, without allotting an alternative site to him. He was a seller of potato chops and squatted at a site beside the service lane at the back of a shop off Janpath, New Delhi. There were other squatters who occupied sites in the same service lane. Although in the petition it was claimed that the site was not part of a public street, this was not pressed before the High Court and we will proceed on the basis that as a matter of fact, he was squatting on a publ