2006 Delhi sealing drive

The 2006 Delhi sealing drive was a campaign by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to close (and thus "seal" the locks of) a number of illegal commercial establishments in Delhi, India which are running in residential areas without authorization. The drive witnessed considerable opposition from trading bodies in the city which led to the death of four people in September 2006. It ran until early 2007.

As of today, the Supreme Court of India has suspended the drive. The new plan envisions a mixed land use policy by which commercial and residential use can be simultaneous. However, the sealing drive in Delhi is very much in progress. Shops and establishments which were registered by Municipal Corporation of Delhi under 24 specified categories were made to pay various charges though most of them have commercial electricity meters and some have approved commercial water meters. Almost all the shops had VAT registration and the owners were paying income tax through income from these shops. So all the shops which are running from residential areas and were not found on notified roads are being forcibly shut down.

The government has been reprimanded time and again by the courts for failing to conduct the drive properly: for making excuses such as the drive will create law and order problems, and for not proceeding against the big establishments but instead targeting small shops. Apparently the government has a way of solving the issue by putting in force the Delhi Master Plan 2021 which will allow mixed land use and thus make the commercial activity in residential area legal (a law which the court has declared invalid) out of judicial purview, but the government has as yet not given any indication that it plans to do so. This is probably because that would put the government in direct confrontation with the judiciary. One of the allegations put forward is that the government is not taking any initiative to stop the drive in order to promote shopping malls.

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Wikipedia