Drive to remove illegal hoardings put put up during festival

The Bombay high court on Friday directed all state municipal corporations, including BMC, to immediately conduct a special drive for removing all illegal hoardings and banners put up during the 11-day Ganesh festival.

The court asked BMC to file its compliance affidavit on or before October 15 and further directed the civic body to approach it if any political party worker obstructed the exercise of removing hoardings by submitting his or her name in a sealed envelope. The court said it would take action against those obstructing the civic exercise.

The division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice A.K. Menon was hearing a public interest litigation filed by two NGOs — Janhit Manch and Suswaraj Foundation — to remove all illegal banners and hoardings in all cities of Maharashtra. Earlier, the court had directed state municipal corporations, including those in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Pune to remove all banners from the city. Earlier, the court had even asked the cities’ police commissioners to give necessary protection to corporation workers. The court had taken an undertaking from all political parties that in future, they would not erect any hoardings in the city.

On Friday however, the petitioner’s lawyer Uday Warunjikar brought to the notice of the court that during the Ganesh festival, lakhs of illegal hoardings had been put up despite court orders. Warunjikar said even those political parties that had given an undertaking ended up violating the court orders. The petitioner further suggested the court direct BMC to conduct a special drive to remove the banners.

The court directed all corporations of states to submit action taken report of removal of hoardings till October 13 and kept the hearing on October 15.