Market committee does not have powers to lock and seal: HC

The controversy over the continuation of the wholesale flower market on Badrian Street in George Town area despite being asked to shift to the Koyambedu market has been sealed, with a full bench of the Madras High Court holding that while the local authority has the jurisdiction to determine whether a trader was engaged in wholesale trade or not and disengage him from such business, the market committee does not have powers to evict them.

On the question whether the Tamil Nadu Specified Commodities Markets (Regulation of Location) Act, 1996, authorised the market committee to lock and seal the premises which are otherwise in lawful occupation of the traders, a full bench comprising Justice R Mahadevan, Justice N Seshasayee and Justice GR Swaminathan held that the local authority did not have the power to determine whether an individual was a retailer or wholesaler.

“But when the local authority has been statutorily tasked to discontinue the carrying on of wholesale trade in specified commodities outside the market area, the function of determining who is indulging in the banned activities cannot be left to any other authority,” the bench said. If the affected individual was ready to mend his ways and agreed to confine himself to retail trading or proposes to shift to non-specified commodities, then the local authority cannot continue to keep the premises under lock and seal, it added.

Stressing that no statutory power could be construed in absolute terms and the doctrine of proportionality would have to be read into the statutory scheme, the bench categorically held that the provisions of the Act authorise the local authority and not the market committee to lock and seal the premises for contravention of the provisions of the Act.

“The local authority is empowered to factually determine whether the persons concerned are carrying on wholesale trade in the non-market areas. It is not necessary that this factual determination should be preceded by criminal prosecution as contemplated under Section 47 of the Act,” the bench added.