JUDGMENT Ravi S. Dhavan, J. - Shopkeepers in a planned commercial area can disrupt planned development by petty squabbles with local administration. Isolated, the issue is petty, but if ignored can lead to a malignancy which can disrupt planned market places. 2. The issue in this petition, is thus, one of Public importance. The petitioner No. 1 is a shopkeeper. The petitioner No. 2 is a firm in which he is a partner. The business is retail sale of ladies wearing apparel. The claim of the petitioner is one of individual and personal advantage to the detriment of a common use of a public passage and a verandah running parallel to a public shopping arcade. The object which the petitioner desires to make an issue is a large display window, like a large picture framed on a wall. Given an occasion the petitioner would like the use of the wall. The display window is hung at the end of the varandah which ends into a wall. The petitioner's shop is the last in the line next to the wall where the verandah ends, thus the interest. On the other side of the wall is an open space. The other end of the verandah running contiguous to the straight line of the shops, first east to west and then taking a ninety degree turn to the south, is open. The petitioner resists taking off the shop window on the wall after being required to do so by the respondents, the Allahabad Development Authority and the Nagar Mahapalika, Nos. 1 and 2. 3. The petitioner contends that there is an agreement between him and the respondent by which there was an agreement that the petitioner would use the wall where the verandah ends and the arrangement was to subsist for three years. The agreement, however, was never executed as the petitioner contends that the deed was never formalised. This is confirmed in the counter affidavit. 4. This much is clear from the record that the petitioner solicited the use of the wall from the local administration at the end of the verandah for hanging a shop window. Rightly or wrongly the permission for using the space on the wall was granted. This permission can at best be termed as a licence. It is not a lease as the petitioner contends it to be. The arrangement was made around July, 1986. 5. Rightly or wrongly the permission for using the space on the wall was granted. This permission can at best be termed as a licence. It is not a lease as the petitioner contends it to be. The arrangement was made around July, 1986. 5. The shopping complex in question is running parallel to the crossing of the roads off Mahatma Gandhi Marg and Sardar Patel Marg. On an architects' map this shopping complex is 'L' shaped. The top of the 'L' points east, the other end south. The petitioners' shop is at the east and behind the shopping complex, the Allahabad Development Authority has constructed a multi storeyed commercial complex. The complete area is 12045 square metres. It is contended that there is a provision for parking 1000 cycles, 500 scooters and 120 cars on the basement on the ground floor of the shopping complex. This is otherwise mentioned in a public advertisement, a copy of which is Ann. I to the writ petition. In order that the public may have easy access to the multi storeyed commercial complex as part of planning, the respondents are opening more than one access to this commercial complex. As there is already a shopping complex arcade in front of the commercial complex, it has to be found at other spot and must be more than what exists today. 6. At public places like complexes and parking areas the public must have easy ingress and egress. Crowds in multi storyed buildings need to be managed in such a way that the purpose of erecting a multi storyed complex is not defeated the use of more area on less ground space. With this aspect in mind and for the convenience of the public the respondents merely desire to break the wall at the end of the verandah running towards east, so that the public could veer towards south to reach the shopping complex as conveniently as it is possible. 7. The respondents have fairly submitted in their counter affidavit that no constructions could be put in a verandah running parallel to the shops and the permission which was granted to the petitioner for the use of a wall space within the precincts of the verandah was wrongly granted. 7. The respondents have fairly submitted in their counter affidavit that no constructions could be put in a verandah running parallel to the shops and the permission which was granted to the petitioner for the use of a wall space within the precincts of the verandah was wrongly granted. This Court, in the context of the present case, is not taking any serious note of the fact that the respondents have placed it on record that a mistake had occurred in granting a licence to the petitioner to use a space on the wall of verandah. The wall was there in any case, unlike an encroachment on a public road which cannot be condoned. 8. In order to resist taking the show window of the wall, the petitioner has made an attempt to raise arguments to the effect that giving access to the public from the public passage in the verandah to the adjoining commercial complex required a tedious process of change in the development plan, whether master or zonal. The petitioner contends that unless this process of a change in urban planning of the area is indulged in under the Uttar Pradesh Planning and Development Act, 1972, he cannot be made to take off his large window hanging on the wall. The petitioner is making a mountain out of a mole hill and the argument is otherwise rediculous and self defeating. It is the petitioner who is obstructing the development and the betterment of the commercial centre. The petitioner arranged to encroach the verandah under a camouflage of a licence, and then is being difficult (sic) when asked to remove the obstruction. If every shopkeeper like the petitioner as a pattern arranged encroachments of verandahs or passage ways in shopping walls then what is the logic of planning? 9. No passage in a planned shopping arcade when there is no planning then anything can be done, can be obstructed. If shops are set in a line then they must remain in a line, this is known as "street alignment". If a verandah has been planned in front of the shops then it must remain a verandah and its characteristics cannot be changed by obstructions whether by extension of shops or otherwise. Such obstructions are the very negation of planning an orderly shopping complex with civic amenities, for the common good and the benefit of the citizens. If a verandah has been planned in front of the shops then it must remain a verandah and its characteristics cannot be changed by obstructions whether by extension of shops or otherwise. Such obstructions are the very negation of planning an orderly shopping complex with civic amenities, for the common good and the benefit of the citizens. Any aspect of urban planning must forseen that what may be sufficient today may be inadequate tomorrow. Urban planning has a direct nexus with the population density and the openness of spaces used by the public is to be strictly preserved. Obstructions of public passages, and a verandah in front of a shopping complex is no exception, is an encroachment of a public place, like a cause way, and it cannot and ought not to exist. No licence can be granted to encroach such passages. 10. A verandah of a public shopping or market place whether adjoining a public street, kerb or causeway or a public square is as much a part of public street. It is a public passage no different from a subway, bridge, viaduct, or arch and an approach to the public street or the shops. 11. The definition of the expression "street" as contained in the two legislations which govern urban areas in the State gives an indication that a verandah, in reference to the context, is a part of a street. At the turn of the century, the urban areas began to be governed by an enactment known as United Provinces Municipalities Act, 1916, hereinafter referred to as the 1916 Act. "Street" is defined in S. 2 sub-clause (23) of the Act aforesaid. The definition reads : "(23) 'Street' means any road, bridge, footway, lane, square, court, alley or passage which the public or any portion of the public has right to pass along and includes, on either side the drains or gutters and the land up to the defined boundary of any abutting property, notwithstanding the projection over such land of any verandah or others superstructure." (Emphasis supplied) This implies that notwithstanding that a public passage may be covered in front of a line of shops yet it will not cease to be a street. 12. 12. For more than half a century the expression "street" in law, has included public passages how be it they may have been covered by a projection and otherwise known as a verandah. Verandah is only a concept of an architectural pattern. At the turn of the century there was a style to design shopping complexes and arcades with a running verandah between the kerb and the shops. 13. Street was again defined in a subsequent legislation, initially enacted for the five cities of the State of Uttar Pradesh known as KAVAL towns, viz, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Agra and Lucknow, Subsequently extended for three other cities also. This enactment was the U.P. Nagar Mahapalika Adhiniyam 1959, referred to hereinafter as the 1959 Adhiniyam. The word street was defined in sub-clause (74) of S. 2. This definition says : "(74) 'Street includes any highway and any causeway, bridge, viaduct, arch, road, land footway, subway, court, alley or riding path or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not, over which the public have a right of passage or access or have passed and had access uninterruptedly for a period of twenty years: and when there is a foot-way as well as a carriage way said tern includes both. 14. There is no difference between the expression "Street" as explained in 1916 or the 1959 Adhiniyam. The subsequent enactment refers to the word "Street" with a more modern approach. It uses new expressions otherwise not contained in the 1916 Act such as 'highway' 'causeway, 'viaduct', 'arch', 'subway and areas like 'riding path' The latter enactment further explains the expressions "Street" to include such passages which have been used uninterruptedly for a period of twenty years. 15. Taking the amalgum of the same woe "street" as was used more than seventy years ago and in the subsequent legislation, it is safe to interpret that a verandah running continuous and sandwiched between a public street and a public shopping arcade is a public passage way. 16. The Verandah of the streets of Chowrangee in Calcutta or the inner and other circles of Cannaught Place in New Delhi, are the public places within the meaning of the expression "Street". The verandahs of the public shopping centres of Allahabad can be no exception. 17. 16. The Verandah of the streets of Chowrangee in Calcutta or the inner and other circles of Cannaught Place in New Delhi, are the public places within the meaning of the expression "Street". The verandahs of the public shopping centres of Allahabad can be no exception. 17. There is no right equitable or legal which the petitioner has, in preventing the local administration from throwing the passage open after removing the wall and delivering a right of passage to the shoppers and the public to the multistoreyed commercial complex at the back of the line of shops where the petitioners is also. The petitioner must bide his peace with the shop which has been leased to him, beyond the shop is the public passage. 18. The respondents have committed no illegality or irregularity in directing the petitioner to take off the shop window from the wall which they have proposed to break for the purpose declared. 19. The petition is misconceived and is dismissed with cots.