The Madras High Court on Wednesday came down heavily on Greater Chennai Corporation for flouting orders passed by the court on many occasions to crack down on illegalities in erection of flex boards in the city. The court said that the civic body would be doing so at the risk of facing contempt of court proceedings.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and P. Rajamanickam were critical of the local body during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy seeking a blanket ban across the State on erection of flex boards be it during political functions or for any other event.
The senior judge in the Bench said, such a ban could not be imposed without hearing those involved in the trade of making flex boards and asked the activist to include their associations as parties to the case. He, however, agreed with the petitioner that government norms and court orders continue to be flouted on the issue.
Referring to three flex boards erected close to the University of Madras in view of former Chief Minister’s Jayalalithaa’s death anniversary on Wednesday, the judge asked the Corporation counsel: “Whether names of applicants and details of permission granted are printed on those digital banners? What action have you taken against the violators?”
Speedy permission
When the counsel produced documents related to applications made for granting permission and the official proceedings through which permission had been granted, the judges found that the permission letter contained the size of the flex boards though the applicant himself had not mentioned as to what was the size for which he required permission. Surprised over the speed with which the Corporation had been granting permission for flex boards, Mr. Justice Sathyanarayanan said: “It appears your corporation functions exclusively for granting licence to digital banners. It has no other job. We are putting you on advance notice. You are liable to be held up for contempt.”
The judge went on to elaborate that the contempt proceedings could be initiated not only under the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971 but also under Article 215 of the Constitution. He pointed out that several judgements passed by the court, including three penned by himself, on regulation of flex boards were based only on the existing statutory rules.
“Why have the rules and then violate them. You scrap all the rules. You have the power to do so. You are the government. What is our botheration?” the judge told a government counsel after pointing out that many Collectors in the districts too had been granting permission for flex boards at lightning speed.