Judgment

CHANDRACHUD, CJI.:- These writ petitions are filed by and on behalf of a large number of hawkers who carry on the trade of hawking their wares in Greater Bombay, They sell almost everything under the sun, from hairpins to hot food and vegetables to video cassettes. They hawk their wares standing or squatting on public streets, which constitutes a serious impediment to the free movement of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Standing, of course, is safer than squatting because, it ensures easy mobility at the sight of Municipal or police officers. Mobile hawkers decorated with a hundred ball pens, like war-medals, is quite a common sight in Bombay. Constraints of modern times have created ingenious methods of trading. Some of the streets in Bombay are so incredibly flooded with merchandise sold by hawkers that it is impossible for the pedestrians to walk on those streets. The Bombay Municipal Corporation has been making herculean efforts to clear the streets of these and other obstructions but, those efforts have met with intense opposition from several quarters, not unexpectedly, even from those who wield considerable political influence. In the ultimate analysis, it is the b