Bombay High Court slams BJP leaders for defacing city with hoardings

The court was irked when BJP’s lawyer suggested the BMC must provide places where hoardings can be displayed.

The Bombay high court on Saturday rapped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for seeking that space be provided to display hoardings. “Why do you need to display any illegal hoardings when social media is available ,” the court asked.

The BJP’s lawyer, Sandesh Patil, submitted to the court on Saturday that they have taken necessary steps and asked party workers to not display any illegal hoardings in the city.

The court was irked when Mr Patil suggested that the BMC and other corporations must provide places where hoardings can be displayed. “Why do you need to display any illegal hoardings when social media is available ” court said. “We never opposed such hoardings which have licences and despite restricting illegal hoardings you are asking for places to display hoardings,” the court said.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice A.A. Sayed was hearing a bunch of PILs filed by many non-governmental organisations and social activists against the hoardings put up by political parties as well as commercial and religious illegal hoardings.

Meanwhile, BMC’s lawyer Anil Sakhare submitted an affidavit, which stated that between January 2016 to October 10, 2016, the BMC has removed 12,486 hoardings and out of that 2,855 cases were referred to police stations for registering complaints but the police has registered only 138 FIRs.

This annoyed the court, which told the government. “You are disbelieving BMC’s complaint. Why is it so If you don’t believe, then police officers have to go and verify the facts.”

At the end, the court directed the BMC and other corporations to continue with the demolition drive of illegal hoardings till the final order on these PILs.