Civic body claims only 3 illegal pandals

Mumbai: In a U-turn, the Briha-nmumbai Municipal Co-rporation (BMC) on Monday claimed in court that there were only three illegal pandals in the suburbs and not 44 as stated earlier. At last hearing, the civic body had accepted the revenue department’s report that there were 44 illegal pandals in the suburbs.

Furthermore, the court on Monday came to know that the Thane, Bhiwandi and KDMC corporations had also allowed illegal pandals in their areas. The court therefore asked them to provide the names and designations of the officers who did not follow the court’s orders so that contempt action could be initiated against them.

Last week, the BMC had informed the court that despite its direction, 13 ward officers gave permission to 44 pandals in their area which were already counted as illegal by the revenue department. The court held that this was in violation of its order.

On Monday, BMC counsel Anil Sakhare informed the court that his officers carried out their own study and found that only three out of the 44 pandals were illegal. Advocate Sakhre also claimed that the revenue department data was wrong.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice M.S. Sonak was hearing a PIL filed by Dr Mahesh Bedekar aga-inst illegal pandals in the city, which caused pedestrians and citizens a lot of distress.

Subsequently, the Tha-ne, Kalyan-Dombivali, Ulhasnagar and Bhiwa-ndi municipal corporations also filed affidavits regarding the implementation of the HC orders. After perusing the affidavits, the court noticed that there were many illegal pandals erected.