CHENNAI: After asking the state government earlier this month “how many more litres of blood … it needs to paint the roads with” before taking action against illegal banners, and slamming “sheer bureaucratic apathy” for “zero respect for lives”, the Madras high court on Monday asked the city police why no action has been taken against officials of Greater Chennai Corporation and those from the police department who failed to prevent erection of unauthorised digital banners, which led to the death of a 23-year-old techie in Pallikaranai.
Justice M S Ramesh raised the oral query while hearing a plea moved by E Tamizmani of Ilayathalaimurai NGO seeking direction to the police commissioner to grant permission for the organization to hold a hunger strike in front of Pallikaranai corporation office. The judge directed the commissioner to file his response to the plea on Wednesday.
The petitioner said he made a representation to the commissioner seeking permission for the protest on September 15. But it was rejected. Aggrieved, the petitioner moved the present plea challenging the commissioner’s decision.
When the plea came up for hearing, the petitioner submitted that the organization was not staging the protest to condemn the government but to mourn the death of Subashree. Though the protest will be peaceful and a Gandhian silent fast, authorities have failed to consider it, the petitioner said. He wanted the court to direct the commissioner to grant permission for the protest on some other day.
A day after the death of Subashree, a division bench of the court, which was hearing a contempt plea moved by activist K R ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy, censured the Tamil Nadu government and corporation officials for failing to check the menace of unauthorised digital banners despite several court orders. The court also directed the state to pay `5 lakh interim compensation to the family of the techie with the liberty to recover it from the erring officials.
During the hearing, the court was informed that both the ruling and the opposition parties have issued statements calling upon their workers and supporters to refrain from erecting banners without permission and thereby causing inconvenience to the public.
The advocate general further informed the court that the government had decided to organise a joint drive by the corporation and traffic police to remove all unauthorised banners in Chennai. However, in future, field level monitoring can only be done by the traffic police as the corporation lacked manpower and other resources to do that.
Justice M S Ramesh raised the oral query while hearing a plea moved by E Tamizmani of Ilayathalaimurai NGO seeking direction to the police commissioner to grant permission for the organization to hold a hunger strike in front of Pallikaranai corporation office. The judge directed the commissioner to file his response to the plea on Wednesday.
The petitioner said he made a representation to the commissioner seeking permission for the protest on September 15. But it was rejected. Aggrieved, the petitioner moved the present plea challenging the commissioner’s decision.
When the plea came up for hearing, the petitioner submitted that the organization was not staging the protest to condemn the government but to mourn the death of Subashree. Though the protest will be peaceful and a Gandhian silent fast, authorities have failed to consider it, the petitioner said. He wanted the court to direct the commissioner to grant permission for the protest on some other day.
A day after the death of Subashree, a division bench of the court, which was hearing a contempt plea moved by activist K R ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy, censured the Tamil Nadu government and corporation officials for failing to check the menace of unauthorised digital banners despite several court orders. The court also directed the state to pay `5 lakh interim compensation to the family of the techie with the liberty to recover it from the erring officials.
During the hearing, the court was informed that both the ruling and the opposition parties have issued statements calling upon their workers and supporters to refrain from erecting banners without permission and thereby causing inconvenience to the public.
The advocate general further informed the court that the government had decided to organise a joint drive by the corporation and traffic police to remove all unauthorised banners in Chennai. However, in future, field level monitoring can only be done by the traffic police as the corporation lacked manpower and other resources to do that.
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