National capital’s iconic Khan Market on Friday secured a major relief from the Delhi High Court, which allowed its restaurants exemption from obtaining a fire NOC (no-objection certificate) to continue operations.The court, however, imposed a condition — the restaurants in question will not house more than 50 guests at any point of time.Taking up a petition for relief from the fire NOC requirement filed by famous food chains such as Perch, Yum Yum Cha, Starbucks Coffee, Khan Chacha, Anglow and Sly Granny, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav described Khan Market as “Dilli ki shaan”. The court said that the petitioners should not be denied operation of restaurants only on the lack of a fire NOC so long as they maintain an occupancy rate of up to 50 guests.Justice Kaurav said, “If any action is contemplated against the petitioners for the lack of a fire NOC, the same shall not be given effect to without a prior notice of 30 days. The petitioners shall thereafter be at liberty to take appropriate recourse in accordance with law,” the HC Judge said, drawing a middle path between regulation and reality.The order came after the restaurants argued that they must not be treated as “assembly buildings” under the Unified Building Byelaws, 2016. At the heart of the matter was the question — when does a restaurant become an “assembly building”? Under the Unified Building Bye-Laws, 2016, the threshold is 50 persons, beyond which stricter fire norms, including occupancy load calculations, kick in.Khan Market restaurants argued that they had long operated below this threshold, with licences granted accordingly. They said the problem arose when the authorities recalibrated the yardstick, applying spatial formulas that inflated their notional capacity, pushing them into a regulatory category they had never occupied in practice.What followed was a cascade of consequences — stalled renewals, threatened closures, and a compliance burden that many claimed was structurally impossible to meet.Stopping short of a final ruling on this classification, the HC also acknowledged the inconsistency and the lived reality of the market’s design.It took note of a shifting regulatory backdrop as the New Delhi Municipal Council informed the Bench that it had eased the requirement of a health trade licence, provided other conditions were met. The petitioning restaurants also gave an undertaking that they would meet all other safety standards as directed by the Fire Department and the other authorities, a matter HC took on record.This, the court observed, diluted the immediacy of the core legal issue — renewal of licences due to the lack of a fire NOC – that may not need final adjudication.Noting that “the market was historically significant… its character well-established”, the court struck a middle ground. It allowed fire NOC exemption to cafes but refused to dilute the safety net entirely.The 50-person cap is not advisory, it is the condition on which the judicial relief stands. Breach it, and the protection collapses, though not without a due notice, which would not be less than 30 days.As the Khan Market marks its 75th year, the Delhi Court verdict ensures the clatter of cutlery and the hum of conversation in its spaces continues, but under a new, invisible ceiling.