Court orders removal of illegal hoardings across city

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has warned chief officers of all municipal corporations and councils to remove illegal hoardings from their respective areas or face contempt-of-court action after it came to know that, in spite of its orders, only 10 per cent of corporations had removed such hoardings.

The court, as a last chance, directed the counsels of the corporations to tender fresh affidavits on August 4.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Amjad Sayyad was hearing public interest litigations (PIL) filed by an NGO, Suswaraj Found-ation, and activist Bhag-wanji Rayani seeking the removal of illegal hoardings throughout the state. The petitioners argued that these banners are defacing cities and sought action against corporations that allow them. The court had passed a comprehensive order to rem-ove hoardings and sought compliance.

The state government submitted the compliance report of all corporations  on Friday, and counsel Uday Varunjikar brought to the notice of the court that civic officials in Aurangabad and Jalna had not removed any hoardings as they didn’t have enough staff for the work.

The court noted that most of the councils had failed to remove hoardings. The court sought an explanation from the state on the report of the Shirdi municipal council where it was stated that it had declared setting up of each and every hoarding illegal, hence there was no question of removing hoardings. The court then asked the state government if there were any existing laws under which hoardings could be banned.