HC raps civic bodies for not acting against illegal hoardings

The Bombay High Court today expressed unhappiness over the failure of municipal councils in Maharashtra to comply with its earlier orders on removing illegal hoardings, posters and banners exhibited by political parties in public places across the state.
A bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka directed all the municipal councils in the state to comply with the HC orders and report to the government as soon as possible.
The government has been asked to file a compliance report by March end.
In November last year, the high court had warned the civic bodies to remove illegal hoardings immediately or else they would be dissolved. The court had noted that only the municipal authorities of Pune, Mumbai and Akola had complied with the court orders while other civic bodies have simply chosen to ignore it.

Despite the HC threat to dissolve the civic bodies in case they failed to act against illegal hoardings, the municipal councils have failed to comply with the court orders, the judges noted today.
The court was hearing a bunch of PILs alleging that political parties were putting up hoardings, posters and banners without taking permission, thereby defacing public and private properties.

In August, the bench had ordered an appointment of nodal agencies to check this practice and also asked major political parties, including Congress, Shiv Sena, BJP and MNS to give separate written undertakings assuring that they would not erect hoardings anywhere in the state without permission.

The court had also ordered that all civic bodies should have a toll-free number to enable people to register complaints against illegal hoardings.
The bench had further ordered the formation of a committee of citizens at the ward level to keep a check on illegal hoardings and asked the local authorities to organise awareness programmes on the issue.
The bench had also ordered senior police inspectors in Mumbai and officers in-charge of concerned police stations outside the city to provide protection to the municipal team, which removes such illegal posters and hoardings.
The court ordered protection as civic bodies complained that workers of political parties beat up their staff whenever the latter moved in to remove such hoardings.