Source : https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/coronavirus/news/now-subordinate-courts-to-function-in-two-shifts/articleshow/79456765
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Hawkers have a juice seller and a lawyer to thank 19/03/22, 4*04 PM
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Hawkers have a juice seller and a lawyer to thank
/ Nov 28, 2020, 06.38 AM IST
Other juice sellers refused to join Rizwan Khan in his petition, fearing that they would be harassed; (inset) Mayur Faria appeared for Khan for free
Advocate Mayur Faria filed a PIL for juice seller Rizwan Khan asking that licence fees of hawkers and penalty for late payment be waived during the lockdown; the BMC has said nothing about the licence fees.
A rare partnership between a sugarcane juice seller and a young lawyer has brought relief to licensed hawkers across the city. Thanks to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by juice seller Rizwan Khan, and argued by advocate Mayur Faria, the BMC decided to waive the penalty imposed for late payment of hawkers’ licence fees for the lockdown period.
Most citizens who refuse to accept injustice are hampered by not getting lawyers to fight for them. But Khan had Faria to help him.
Sometime in July, Khan, 46, heard that the BMC was confiscating sugarcane juice carts and even threatening to cancel the sellers’ security deposits, because they had not paid licence fees during the lockdown. At the ward office, he was asked not only to pay the fees for the entire lockdown, but also a penalty of Rs 2,000 for late payment.
Khan approached the hawkers’ union, wrote an appeal to the BMC and even got his corporator Rais Shaikh to write one. When nothing happened for a month, he spoke to advocate Mayur Faria, who had helped him go to the Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2014 against a police inspector who was threatening to implicate Khan in a false case if he didn’t pay him a bribe. The inspector was convicted.
Hawkers have a juice seller and a lawyer to thank 19/03/22, 4*04 PM
Khan approached Faria against the advice of his fellow sugarcane sellers. Grievances of people like them were never taken up by courts, they told him, warning Khan of how long it would take before the matter would be decided. They refused to join him in his petition, fearing that they would be harassed by a vengeful municipal corporation. Even Khan’s wife wasn’t happy with his decision.
What made Khan persist? “The Constitution has given us the fundamental right to go to court for justice,” he replied. “The court had given me justice earlier; I have full faith in it.”
It took a directive from the Bombay High Court, followed by a contempt petition for the BMC to convey to Faria earlier this week that they had decided to waive the penalty for the lockdown period. However, Khan and Faria are determined to fight till the licence fees are also waived, as demanded in the PIL.
Khan said, “It’s not as if we were unwilling to work. The police would beat us if we tried to step out of home; the ban on us resuming work is still on. I got by, but some juice sellers had to sell their wives’ jewellery to survive this lockdown.”
This isn’t the only fight Khan has waged during the lockdown. He also got a few parents to join him in pressurising the Safa High School, where his son studies, to halve fees for the lockdown. This entailed a confrontation with powerful Muslim leaders. But he failed to get parents to join him in persuading the Anjuman-I-Islam group to reduce their fees. His daughters study there.
What makes Khan fight when others hesitate? “My father, Nisar Ahmed Khan, was a taxi driver who always spoke up for the right cause. I’ve inherited that trait from him,” he said.
In Faria, Khan has found the right match. Khan’s PIL wasn’t the first the 31-year-old lawyer has fought. When the BMC told him in June that they had no facilities for video conferencing, and would adjourn his RTI appeal if he didn’t appear before them physically, Faria filed a PIL. “I felt I’d been denied access to justice,” he recalled.
On August 14, the BMC agreed to start online hearings of RTI appeals.
Faria also plans to file a PIL on behalf of Laxmi Vilas Bank’s shareholders against the bank’s merger with the DBS bank. He himself is a shareholder of the bank. Two other PILs filed by him are pending since before the lockdown.
Faria appeared for Khan for free; asked why, he just laughed away his generosity.
Explaining what motivated him, Khan recited this couplet: “Humsafar so gaye/ rehbar so gaye/ kaun jaagega/agar hum bhi so gaye?” (Our companions went to sleep, so did our leaders; who will stay wake if we too go to sleep?”)
These words could equally apply to Mayur Faria.