28Power to make regulations for regulating traffic and for preservation of order in public places, etc

(1) The Commissioner of Police may, by notification in the Official Gazette, make regulations to provide for all or any of the following matters, namely:

(a) licensing and controlling persons offering themselves for employment, outside railway stations and other places where passengers arrive, for the carriage of passengers baggages and fixing and providing for the enforcement of a scale of charges for the labour of such persons so employed;

(b) regulating traffic of all kinds in streets and other public places, and the use of streets and other public places by persons riding, driving, cycling, walking or leading or accompanying cattle, so as to prevent danger, obstruction or inconvenience to the public;

(c) regulating the conditions under which vehicles may remain standing in streets and other public places, and the use of streets as halting places for vehicles or cattle;

(d) specifying the number and position of lights to be used on vehicles in streets and the hours between which such lights should be used;

(e) licensing, controlling or prohibiting the erection, exhibition, fixation or retention of any sign, device or representation for the purpose of advertisement, which is visible against the sky from some point in any street and is hoisted or held aloft over any land, building or structure at such height as may be specified in the regulations, having regard to the traffic in the vicinity, and the likelihood of such sign, device or representation at that height being a distraction, or causing obstruction, to such traffic;

(f) specifying certain hours of the day during which cattle shall not be driven, or, as the case may be, driven only in accordance with such regulations, along the streets, or along certain specified streets;

(g) regulating the leading, driving, conducting or conveying of any elephant or wild or dangerous animal through or in any street;

(h) regulating and controlling the manner and mode of conveying timber, scaffold poles, ladders, iron girders, beams or bars, boilers or other unwieldy articles through the streets, and the route and hours for such conveyance;

(i) licensing, controlling or, in order to prevent obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage to the residents or passengers in the vicinity, prohibiting the carrying in streets and public places of gunpowder or any other explosive substance;

(j) prohibiting, except along certain specified streets and during specified hours and subject to such conditions as may be specified in that behalf, the exposure or movement in any street of persons or animals suffering from contagious or infectious diseases, the carcasses of animals or parts of such carcasses or corpses of persons deceased;

(k) specifying certain hours of the day during which ordure or offensive matter or objects shall not be taken from or into houses or buildings in certain streets or conveyed through such streets except in accordance with such regulations;

(l) setting apart places for slaughtering animals, the cleaning of carcasses or hides, the deposit of noxious or offensive matter and for obeying calls of nature;

(m) in cases of existing or apprehended epidemic or infectious disease of men or animals, the cleanliness and disinfection of premises by the occupier thereof and residents therein and the segregation and management of the persons or animals diseased or supposed to be diseased, as may have been directed or approved by the Administrator, with a view to prevent the disease or check the spread thereof;

(n) directing the closing or disuse, wholly or for certain purposes, or limiting to certain purposes only, the use of any source, supply or receptacle of water and providing against pollution of the same or of the water therein;

(o) licensing, controlling or, in order to prevent obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage to the residents or passengers in the vicinity, prohibiting the playing of music, the beating of drums, tom-toms or other instruments and the blowing or sounding of horns or other noisy instruments in or near streets or other public places;

(p) regulating the conduct of or behaviour or action of persons constituting assemblies and processions on or along the streets and specifying in the case of processions, the routes by which, the order in which, and the times at which, the same may pass;

(q) prohibiting the hanging or placing of any cord or pole across a street or part thereof, or the making of a projection or structure so as to obstruct traffic or the free access of light and air;

(r) prohibiting, except in accordance with such regulations, the placing of building materials or other articles or the fastening or detention of any horse or other animals in any street or public place;

(s) licensing, controlling or, in order to prevent obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage to the residents or passengers in the vicinity, prohibiting

(i) the illumination of streets and public places and the exteriors of building abutting thereon by persons other than servants of Government or Corporation or other Municipal officers duly authorised in that behalf,

(ii) the blasting of rock or making excavations in or near streets or public places,

(iii) the using of loudspeaker in or near any public place or in any place of public entertainment;

(t) closing certain streets or places temporarily, in cases of danger from ruinous buildings or other cause, with such exceptions as shall appear reasonable;

(u) guarding against injury to person and property in the construction, repair and demolition of buildings, platforms and other structures from which danger may arise to passengers, neighbours or the public;

(v) prohibiting the setting of fire to or burning of any straw or other matter, or lighting a bonfire or wantonly discharging a fire-arm or air-gun, or letting off or throwing a fire work or, sending up a fire balloon or rocket in or upon a street or within fifty feet of a street or building or the putting up of any post or other thing on the side of or across a street for the purpose of affixing thereto lamps or other contrivances for illumination except in accordance with regulations in this behalf;

(w) regulating the hours during which and the manner in which any place for the disposal of the dead, any dharmashala, village-gate or other place of public resort may be used, so as to secure the equal and appropriate application of its advantages and accommodation and to maintain orderly conduct amongst those who resort thereto;

(x) (i) licensing or controlling places of public amusement or public entertainment;

(ii) prohibiting the keeping of places of public amusement or public entertainment or assembly, in order to prevent obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage to the residents or passengers in the vicinity; and

(iii) regulating the means of entrance and exit at places of public amusement or public entertainment or assembly and providing for the maintenance of public order and the prevention of disturbance thereat;

(y) (i) licensing or controlling in the interest of public order, decency or morality or in the interest of the general public (with such exceptions as may be specified in such regulations), musical, dancing, mimetic or theatrical or other performances for public amusement, including melas;

(ii) regulating in the interest of public order, decency or morality or in the interest of the general public, the employment of artists and the conduct of the artists and the audience at such performances;

(iii) prior scrutiny of such performance and of the scripts in respect thereof, if any, and granting of suitability certificate therefor subject to conditions, if any, by a Board appointed by the Administrator for the purpose, either for the whole of Delhi or for the area concerned or by an Advisory Committee constituted by the Commissioner of Police (the members of the Board or the Advisory Committee being persons who in the opinion of the Administrator or, as the case may be, the Commissioner, possess knowledge of, or experience in, literature, the theatre and other matters relevant to such scrutiny), provision for appeal against the order or decision of the Board or the Advisory Committee to an appellate authority, its appointment or constitution, its procedure and other matters ancillary thereto, and the fees (whether in the form of court-fee stamps or otherwise) to be charged for the scrutiny of such performances or scripts, for applications for obtaining such certificates and for issuing duplicates thereof and in respect of such appeals and any such performances and of the scripts in respect thereof granted suitability certificate by any State shall be exempted from this section;

(iv) regulating the hours during which and the places at which such performances may be given;

(z) regulating or prohibiting the sale of any ticket or pass for admission, by whatever name called, to a place of public amusement;

(za) registration of eating houses, including granting a certificate of registration in each case, which shall be deemed to be a written permission required and obtained under this Act for keeping the eating house, and annual renewal of such registration within a specified period;

(zb) prescribing the procedure in accordance with which any licence or permission sought to be obtained or required under this Act should be applied for and fixing the fees to be charged for any such licence or permission:

Provided that nothing in this section and no licence or certificate of registration granted under any regulation made thereunder shall authorise any person to import, export, transport, manufacture, sell or possess any liquor, or intoxicating drug, in respect of which a licence, permit, pass or authorisation is required under any law relating to prohibition which is for the time being in force.

(2) The power to make regulations under clause (b) of sub-section (1) shall be subject to the control of the Administrator and the power to make regulations under the other clauses of that sub-section shall be subject to the previous sanction of the Administrator.

(3) The power of making regulations under this section shall be subject to the condition of the regulations being made, after previous publication and for the purposes of section 23 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 (10 of 1897) such regulations shall be deemed to be rules; and every regulation made, under this section, shall also be published in the locality affected thereby by affixing copies thereof in conspicuous places near to the building, structure, work or place, as the case may be, to which the same specially relates or by proclaiming the same by the beating of drum or by advertising the same in such local newspapers in Hindi, Urdu and English, or in two or more of these languages, as the Commissioner of Police may deem fit, or by any two or more of these means, or by any other means he may think suitable:

Provided that any such regulation may be made without previous publication if the Commissioner of Police is satisfied that circumstances exist which render it necessary that such regulation should be brought into force at once.

(4) If any regulation made under this section relates to any matter with respect to which there is a provision in any law, rule or bye-law of the Corporation or of any other municipal or local authority in relation to public health, convenience or safety of the locality such regulation shall be subject to such law, rule or bye-law.