Madras High Court Appoints Retired Judge To Supervise Allotment Of Shops At Marina Beach

The bench of Justice R Suresh Kumar and Justice AD Jagadish Chandira appointed Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar, former Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court to act as the monitoring authority for conducting the lot. The court has also appointed Retired Principal District Judge & former judicial member of NCLT T Mohan Raj, and Retd Deputy Registrar of High Court R Ranganathan to assist the monitoring authority.

“For the purpose of conducting the lot, the GCC shall appoint an Adhoc Committee, headed by the Commissioner of GCC, consisting of other Officers of GCC and the Committee to be appointed under the Chairmanship of the Commissioner of GCC be provided to the Former Judge of this Court, to be appointed in this regard, who, on receipt of the constitution of the said Adhoc Committee for the purpose of conducting the lot, can take all necessary assistance from the Adhoc Committee, headed by the Commissioner assistance; For the aforesaid purpose, we request Hon'ble Thiru Justice N.Paul Vasanthakumar, Former Chief Justice of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, to act as the Monitoring Authority for the task of conducting the lot,” the court said.

Background

The court was hearing a petition filed by Devi seeking directions to the authorities to consider her representation requesting to issue a shop and relocate it to Marina Beach.

When the case came up before the court, it noted that the street vending business in Marina had to be regulated as it had been continuously engaging the law courts by litigation after litigation. The court noted that in 2020, a bench had issued a series of directions on regulating street vending at Marina Beach. The court, however, noted that the issue could not be pursued effectively due to COVID-19.

The court noted that no concrete scheme was in place for regulating street vending in Marina due to which shops were placed haphazardly causing heavy inconvenience to the people who throng the beach in large numbers. Thus, in order to give quietus to the issue, the court decided to issue directions.

In its previous orders, the bench had made it clear that only 300 shops of three types of shops would be allowed in the beach – (i) Eatables, (ii) Toys and related goods, and (iii) Fancy goods or souvenirs. The bench added that 100 shops could be allotted to each category, but also gave liberty to the GCC to make alterations in the number of shops in each category.

During the recent hearing, the Advocate General produced a map titled “Marina Beach Layout”, as per which 4 blue flag phases were to be created in the entire stretch of Marina beach, out of which one had already been created and put to public use since September 2025.

With respect to the remaining three phases, it was submitted that the Blue Flag Phase – II would be created with an area of 38 acres, Blue Flag Phase – III would be created with an area of 23 acres, and Blue Flag Phase – IV would be created with an area of 35 acres.

The AG also informed the court that in the four stretches, less than 2 acres of land would alone be utilised for locating the row of shops and the entire stretch of marina beach, except the small area, would be free of hawking not only in the Blue Flag Phase areas, but also in the non-Blue Flag Phase areas.

The court accepted the plan, with minor modifications and appointed the monitoring committee to supervise the shop allocation.

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr.S.Elankumaran

Counsel for Respondents: Mr.M.Suresh Kumar Additional Advocate General assisted by Dr.T.Seenivasan Special Government Pleader , Mr.P.S.Raman Advocate General assisted by Mr.D.B.R.Prabhu Standing Counsel, Mr.A.Gokulakrishnan Additional Public Prosecutor, Mr.M.Madhuprakash

Case Title: S Devi v. The Principal Secretary to the Government

Case No: W.P.No.36085 of 2025

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