Court appoints panel to check on illegal banners

Chennai: The Madras high court has appointed a monitoring committee, comprising Justice S. Rajeswaran, a retired judge of the Madras HC, as chairperson, and A.S. Jeevarathinam and P. Ekambaram, retired IAS officers, as members, for monitoring the implementation of the orders of the court and also to receive and decide the complaints against the erection of illegal banners and flex boards in the state.

A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan, posted to February 26, 2015 further hearing of the contempt petition filed by social activist ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy, which sought action against officials responsible for illegal erection of banners and failed to implement the order of the court dated January 9, 2014.The bench granted 48 hours’ time to Yatra Media to bring down its hoarding put up on Dr Durgabai Deshmukh Road and imposed a cost of Rs 20,000 on it for abusing the process of court.

The counter-affidavit filed by Chennai corporation stated that the hoarding was located on a river bank. No permission had been obtained for erecting a steel structure and advertisements as required under chapter XII-A of the Chennai City Corporation Municipal Act. The counter suggests that the petitioner was not a service provider or a stockist of beverages, he had only constructed a small room to set up the hoarding, the bench added.

The bench said, “It appears to be a gross abuse of process, whereby large hoardings have been erected and to give it a semblance of legality, a small room has been constructed, which is claimed to be a godown, but the petitioner’s description points to it being an advertisement business. Setting up the hoarding amounts to use of government land for the organisation’s own monetary benefit. The government can recover the charges and proceed against the petitioner against any unauthorised construction. It should ensure that defective notices are not issued to create cause of action in favour of the petitioner.”