LUCKNOW, Feb. 5 -- In a relief to street vendors in the state capital, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has ordered that no existing street vendor shall be removed, provided they are not obstructing the smooth flow of traffic, until the Town Vending Committee completes the city survey under the Street Vendors Act, 2014, and issues vending certificates. Directing that the matter be listed after three months, the court also asked the Lucknow Municipal Corporation to prepare a vending plan in the meantime. A division bench of justice Rajan Roy and justice Awadhesh Kumar Chaudhary issued this order on January 29 on a petition filed by Amar Kumar Sonkar and other street vendors from Aminabad. The order was uploaded on the high court website on Wednesday. Such vendors will have statutory protection under Section 3(3) until the survey is completed according to law, vending plan is approved by the state government, and vending certificates are issued to all those eligible, the court said. Petitioners argued that the survey had been completed, but certificates had not yet been issued. The municipal corporation admitted that though a vending plan had been prepared, it had not yet received approval from the state government. The court observed that without the state government's approval, the vending plan is non-existent in the eyes of the law. The court also noted that the process of preparing the necessary plan, conducting the survey, and issuing certificates under the Act had been pending for the past 11 years....