Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi on Friday claimed that a court-appointed panel has “taken a decision to deseal” over 300 shops which were sealed in 2018 for alleged violation of norms. In a press conference, she described the move as a “Diwali gift” for the affected traders.
In 2018, 392 shops were sealed at the instance of a Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee, she said. These garment shops were located in Lajpat Nagar-IV area and were sealed for carrying out “commercial activity in a residential area”, the mayor said.
Now, after years of their struggle, the “monitoring committee has taken a decision to deseal” these shops, she told reporters, and said the move was “praiseworthy”.
A senior official of the MCD, when contacted, also said the decision to “deseal” these shops was taken by the monitoring committee. Mayor Oberoi also told reporters that these traders will have to submit an undertaking and a few other documents to start the process.
“A supplementary lease deed which is executed by the L&DO, will have to be submitted, as also penalties and misuse charges to be paid to L&DO, besides conversion and parking charges, if due,” Oberoi said. “One more certificate on structural stability will have to be submitted to the MCD.
After all these formalities are done, only then shops will be desealed,” she told reporters.
Meanwhile Delhi BJP Spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor has said that the traders of Delhi’s Amar Colony who have been fighting a long legal battle to get their shops desealed are today extremely grateful towards the Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri for giving them a big legal relief. “Even after a decision of Union Urban Development Ministry the legal process of obtaining Supplementary Lease Deed & payment of penalty charges to ensure desealing could have easily taken another 18 to 24 months,” Kapoor added.