- (1.) The petitioners in this writ petition seek quashing of the public notice issued on 30.01.2010 (Annexure P15) proposing to auction the land of Mewa Mandi at Amritsar. They also seek quashing of the eviction orders passed against them under the Punjab Public Premises (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1973, besides a direction not to displace them from their present place of functioning i.e. Mewa Mandi where they are said to be running the business of fruit and vegetables since the time of their forefathers.
(2.) The case has a chequered history with a voluminous record though the issue which finally survives falls within a short compass. Suffice it would be to mention here that the forefathers of the petitioners started wholesale business of fruits and vegetables in an area approximately measuring 8 acres in the heart of city Amritsar known as Mewa Mandi. There is indeed no dispute that the petitioners or their predecessors are/were not owners of the subject property though they were the occupiers and had obtained the requisite license from the competent authority to run the afore-stated business. The aforesaid property was urban nazool land and vests in the Municipal Council (now Municipal Corporation, Amritsar).
(3.) The State Government and other respondent-authorities in the year 2002 decided to shift fruits and vegetable market from the congested place of Mewa Mandi to the New Mandi Complex known as Vallah Mandi. The aforesaid decision was challenged by the Fruits and Vegetable Union in CWP No.5884 of 1995 which was disposed of by a learned Single Judge on 21.09.1999. The licensee(s) and/or their Union preferred LPA No.15 of 2000 which is stated to be pending without any interim stay. It further appears that the bone of contention in the afore-stated first round of litigation was against non-adjustment of all the registered traders at the new Mandi site. Only 40 out of 75 traders had originally qualified the criteria. The norms for allotment of sites in the new Mandi on preferential basis to the existing traders were thereafter relaxed as per the allotment policy of 1998 so as to accommodate all the Traders to whom now one plot each has been allotted at a discounted price of Rs.5,77,500/- with a condition to raise construction within a period of two years from the date of allotment.;