Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Thursday came down heavily on the commissioners of various civic corporations and said that unless one of them is put behind bars, they will not comply with court orders. The observations were made while hearing compliance reports of corporations with regards to illegal pandals put up by mandals during the recently concluded festivals.
The petitioners had complained that despite court directions, civic corporations had failed to deter mandals from erecting pandals, which obstructed traffic. The court has asked the commissioners of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) and Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) to file affidavits by November 30.
A division bench of Justice A.S. Oka and Justice A.K. Menon, while hearing a bunch of petitions on implementation of noise pollution norms and action against illegal pandals during festivals, was informed that despite its orders, several pandals were illegally erected in several areas. The petitioners informed the court that in Mumbai 42 illegal pandals were erected while in Navi Mumbai and Kalyan Dombivali 62 and 36 pandals respectively were erected after flouting the rules and court directions.
After hearing the submissions, Justice Oka said, “This is a clear breach of orders passed by us in the past. Unless we take some drastic steps we do not think the authorities would comply with our orders. Unless some municipal commissioner is sent to jail and put behind bars there would be no compliance.”
On perusing the charts submitted by the civic corporations regarding pandals constructed by the Ganeshotsav and Navratri mandals, the court censured the civic officials for submitting details without actually making the effort to visit the site and inspect the pandals. The court then issued showcause notices to BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta, NMMC commissioner N. Ramaswamy and commissioner of KDMC P. Velrasu and asked them to file their affidavits in this regard.
In its order passed last year the court had directed the civic authorities to ensure that pandals were constructed only after getting requisite permissions and to ensure that the permitted pandals did not obstruct the traffic and movement of pedestrians.
