Court sets deadline for illegal hoardings

The Bombay high court on Thursday directed municipal corporations across Maharashtra to conduct a special drive beginning December 5 and ending January 26 to remove all illegal hoardings, posters and banners so that there would not be a single illegal hoarding across the state on Republic Day.

In the meantime, the division bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Gautam Patel also issued notices of contempt against BJP leader Ashish Shelar, MLA Parag Alvani, other party workers and a few workers of MNS for putting up illegal hoardings in violation of court directives. Other political parties including Congress, NCP, Shiv Sena, RPI (A) and BSP were issued appearance notices so that they appeared before the court and assured the court that they would not put up illegal hoardings otherwise contempt notices would be issued against them. Contempt notices were issued against those who had given an undertaking in court that they would not put up illegal hoardings and had yet put up such hoardings.

In a detailed order, the judges also asked civic bodies to come up with a mechanism to receive complaints through emails and SMSs just like they had done in the matter of potholes. The bench said that there should be an option by which people could lodge complaints anonymously. The judges asked civic bodies to give wide publicity to the grievance redressal mechanisms adopted to remove illegal hoardings such as emails, letters, toll-free numbers etc.

The court issued directions while hearing a bunch of PILs filed by Suswaraj Foundation and Bhagwanji Riyani of Janhit Manch. The petitioners alleged that political workers, NGOs and private organisations were putting up illegal hoardings, banners and posters all over the state in complete violation of civic rules, defacing private and public properties and spaces. The petitions were filed seeking implementation of provisions of the Municipal Corporation Act and Maharashtra Prevention of Defacement of Property Act.

The judges also asked the police to do patrolling in the night and early morning so that no illegal hoardings were put up at these times. The bench suggested all political parties follow NCP’s strategy to control illegal hoardings. The judges said NCP had informed the court it would appoint one leader from its party in every corporation to take note of illegal hoardings and bring it to the notice of municipal administration.