IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.20206 of 2010 PRAMOD KUMAR NIRALA & ORS . Versus THE STATE OF BIHAR & ORS . ----------- 6. 22.02.2011 I.A. No. 692 of 2011 has been filed for impleading six persons named therein as intervener petitioners. Having heard Counsel for the parties the I.A. application is allowed. Heard learned Counsel for the petitioners, for the State and for the Patna Municipal Corporation. The five petitioners contend that they are running petty shops since approximately 1990 opposite the GPO, Kamla Nehru Nagar, PS Kotwali, District Patna, submitting that it is their only source of livelihood. Ouster without rehabilitation shall affect their livelihood. Counsel for the State and the Municipal Corporation submitted that unless the petitioners are in lawful occupation of the premises by a settlement merely because they may have encroached shall not vest in them any rights to demand protection and rehabilitation. Urban planning necessarily takes within its ambit laying out areas for shops and hawkers. If what the petitioners contend is correct, they could not have illegally continued on the premises in question for long years without connivance and active cooperation by the officers who were required to implement the law and prevent the encroachment. But the petitioners cannot be left at the receiving end alone. They may have no right to insist on the encroachment but if what they contend is correct they do have a claim for rehabilitation. If the petitioners satisfy the authorities of long continuance, as claimed, the respondents shall not disturb the petitioners except after rehabilitating them and the location for which shall be the discretion of the respondents not to be questioned by the petitioners. Though late, urban planning necessarily requires the respondents to even now start planning for a better Patna tomorrow. So long as the petitioners continue to occupy the present premises the Municipal Corporation without prejudice to its right and contention shall be at liberty to collect revenue from such petitioners only for whom it is satisfied of long continuance claimed. This order shall not take into account such persons who may have made encroachment in recent times i.e. at least within the last five years. The Corporation shall be at liberty to take action against them in accordance with law. To unsettle the petitioners at this stage by a simple dismissal of the writ petition shall not only violate their fundamental right under Article 19(1)(g) but also under Article 21 of the Constitution leaving them without any source of livelihood as claimed by them. It is now up to the respondents to decide how quickly and efficiently they wish to plan a better Patna for tomorrow’s generations or wallow in ad-hocism. The writ application stands disposed. Snkumar/- (Navin Sinha,J.)