BMC chief ordered officials to not remove hoardings of CM: Petitioner informs HC

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Makarand S Karnik has been hearing pleas, including a contempt plea initiated by the High Court on its own, claiming non-compliance with its 2017 orders to pull down illegal hoardings and that political parties are flouting the order every day and defacing public places.

The petitioner claimed that though the High Court had passed numerous orders to curb the installation of illegal hoardings across the city and the state, people still put them up at the behest of political parties during the festival season.

The state government in its reply said that measures were put in place to prevent putting up of illegal hoardings. It said a special drive was held between August 5 and 13 wherein illegal hoardings were removed and certain other steps are being taken, including uploading info of illegal hoardings in real time, outsourcing the job of removing illegal hoardings and imposing an instant penalty on individuals putting up such structures. Last month, the HC questioned the state government why it cannot adopt a policy to ensure political leaders do not put photographs of their faces on illegal hoardings.

On Friday, Advocate Manoj Shirsat appearing for one of the intervenors referred to a news report that an unofficial direction was issued by Chahal to officials not to remove any hoarding or banner featuring the CM and submitted that such an approach is against the purpose of the PIL and court orders. The advocate alleged that the state government is not serious about tackling the menace of illegal hoardings.

The court said that it cannot go by a media report and asked Shirsat to place the same on record through an affidavit. “You (Shirsat) file an affidavit placing this article on record. We will then ask the government to respond to it,” the bench said.

Additional government pleader Bhupesh V Samant submitted that the state government has adopted certain measures and suggestions to curb illegal hoardings and a drive was undertaken and thousands of banners had been removed and people responsible for the same were booked.

The government submitted a report on action taken by it along with suggestions on how to tackle the issue further. It said that it could impose strict punishment and fines on offenders among other measures.

The bench took the report on record and sought an affidavit from an intervenor while posting further hearing in the matter to September 12.