The Madras High Court on Wednesday summoned the Kancheepuram Collector, Superintendent of Police and municipal commissioner to the court on March 13 to explain how AIADMK cadre erected flex boards on Gandhi Road and near Theradi recently despite the operation of a court-imposed State-wide ban on the display of such boards by political parties.

A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and M. Nirmal Kumar passed the order after activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy brought it to their notice that AIADMK cadre had erected flex boards to celebrate former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s birth anniversary on Sunday. He claimed that partymen had shown scant regard to the court-imposed ban and chosen busy public roads for their illegal activities.

Irked over repeated violations of the court orders in various parts of the State, the senior judge in the Bench said if officials were unable to prevent such illegalities then the State should consider repealing all laws, including the Tamil Nadu Urban Local Bodies (permission for erection of digital banners and placards) Rules of 2011. What was the use of having laws in place and letting politicians violate them with impugnity, the judge wondered.

After perusing an affidavit filed by the activist as well as photographs submitted by him, the judges said they prima facie disclose the presence of huge flex boards and a huge dias put up right on the middle of a busy road where even the traffic had to be blocked. They also expressed disappointment over repeated assurances given by law officers to the court, with respect to strict implementation of the rules, having been thrown to the winds.

Preventive action

Stating that flex boards would not have cropped up on the road overnight, the judges asked what the officials were doing when such work was carried out.

They impressed upon the need for officials to initiate preventive action rather than attempt to hoodwink the court by placing reports on action taken after the flex boards were erected.