Pavements are for pedestrians, and neither the civic body nor the government has the right to allow hawkers to encroach, the high court observed on Friday.

The division bench of Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar and Justice Indira Banerjee made the observation after the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) submitted its affidavit on hawker removal in court.

“We are trying to solve the hawker problem. The chief minister will announce a policy in this regard after the cabinet’s approval. One-third of the footpath will be reserved for hawkers. No hawkers will be allowed on certain roads and near major intersections,” stated the affidavit.

The judges told CMC’s lawyer Partha Sengupta that the entire pavements must be made hawker-free. The government and civic body’s joint action plan for hawker removal will have to be placed before the court by April 18, the next date of hearing of the case.

The court also directed the authorities to ensure that no new hawker settled on the pavements till April 18.

Metro has run a sustained campaign for the removal of hawkers from thoroughfares.

Environment activist Subhas Dutta had filed the case in 2003, pointing out that hawkers had taken over several roads.

In 2005, the court had directed the CMC and the police to make eight roads in the central business district — Strand Road, Brabourne Road, Kali Krishna Tagore Street, Chitpur Road, Netaji Subhas Bose Road, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Kalakar Street and AJC Bose Road — free of hawkers.

To buy time, the CMC had told the court in January 2006 it was framing a hawker policy. The judges directed the civic body to submit an affidavit stating the steps being taken.

In November that year, the mayor had sought to legalise the presence of hawkers on one-third of the pavement space, provided they stayed 50 ft away from the intersections. The civic officials had demarcated the permissible outer limit for trading activities on some pavements with a thin white line. The plan came a cropper.