Police personnel have no right whatsoever to unilaterally dictate the time when roadside eateries, hotels and restaurants should be opened or closed. The right vests only with the government, which shall fix the timings by taking into consideration the needs of security guards, taxi drivers, night-shift employees and others who work at odd hours, the Madras High Court has held.
Justice Krishnan Ramasamy held so while allowing a 2018 writ petition filed by S. Gunaraja, who runs an eatery on Ormes Road in Kilpauk. He complained that the police had not been allowing him to run his eatery till 1.30 a.m. and instead forced him to close it down by 10.30 p.m., fearing that law and order problem could be created by anti-social elements during night hours.
Disapproving of such insistence on the part of the police, the judge wrote: “It’s a shame and highly deplorable that being the enforcers of the law and the protectors of the people, the police, instead of taking stringent action against anti-social elements in order to protect the interests of the writ petitioner, are unfortunately insisting upon the petitioner to close his eatery by 10.30 p.m.”
He went on to observe: “The Latin proverb ‘aegrescit medendo’ means the cure is worse than the disease. The present writ petition presents the same scenario, indicating the restrictive and narrow approach adopted by the police.”
The judge pointed out that many people, including the food delivery executives, run around day and night for their work and end up finding time to eat only at odd hours.
“A restaurant open a little late at night serves as a huge sigh of relief for their hungry stomachs. To anticipate that some unruly or anti-social elements might visit these restaurants/eateries/hotels, and therefore, directing them to be closed down and not open late at night is neither rational nor logical. Yet, the police appear to be issuing oral instructions to close down the eateries,” the judge lamented.
While doing so, the police ended up infringing upon the Constitutional right of the eatery owners to carry on their business as per the law and also the fundamental right of the consumers to eat food, a part and parcel of the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, he added. The police could not force eateries to shut down simply because they apprehend a law and order problem, he said.
The judge recalled that eateries and restaurants had to obtain a licence from the Police Department, under the Chennai City Police Act, only prior to an amendment made in September 2007. Post-amendment, the power of the police had been restricted to issuance of no objection certificates alone and that too only with respect to objections if any with regard to road traffic in the locality.
Further, the State government had in May 2019 issued an order permitting all shops and establishments to remain open 24 hours on all seven days of a week. Therefore, the power to fix timings for commercial establishments rests only with the government, he concluded.
