The vendors, under the aegis of the Bombay Hawkers' Association, collectively received a colossal 688 injunctions between April and December 1998 - merely because the Legal Department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) failed to submit an affidavit in court after the first case was filed in April. Of these, the 150-odd hawkers in the CST-General Post Office area alone were granted a phenomenal 150 injunctions. The affidavit in question, which was sought after the first case was filed in April 1998, wasfinally filed in January 1999. Civic sources say they are sore with the Legal Department for its failure to file a simple legal document in court. The delay, they point out, has contributed to the utter chaos at one of Mumbai's most famous landmarks at CST.

Civic Law Officer, A H Chheda, said the department's workload is tremendous. ``We do not even have computers for better efficiency,'' is Chedda's defence. However, the department's impaired reflexes to litigation in general and hawkers in particular have been capitalised on by vendors all over the city, largely nullifying attempts to evict them. Now, `A' ward hawkers may have inadvertently received a bonus: all individual cases pertaining to Mumbai's hawkers have been clubbed with the ongoing hawking zone case in the Bombay High Court, giving `A' ward vendors another breather.Deputy Municipal Commissioner in-charge of the hawking portfolio, A N Dube, admits: ``The affidavit was filed late but now that is not the crux of the matter as all cases relatingto the hawking zone problem have been clubbed before the Bombay High Court for the April 19 hearing.

It is not fair to blame the Legal Department as it is practically impossible for it to cope with so many cases.'' Counters another civic official: ``If the Legal Department had simply filed its affidavit by May last year, the number of injunctions in the five cases would not have been so high.'' Moreover, he points out, every successive delay has made the hawking problem only snowball as the influx of vendors into the city is tremendous. For instance, he says, over 50 per cent of the hawkers in the CST-GPO area arrived there only after 1997.

President of the Bombay Hawkers Association, K Pokar, says: ``Though we have the right to hawk, I have personally removed unauthorised hawkers from CST as it sometimes becomes very crowded. However, let the BMC come out with a proper solution and we shall cooperate.''