HC directs Municipalities, VPs to submit details of hoardings in their jurisdiction

Team Herald

PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has directed the State government, Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP), municipal councils and village panchayats and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to submit current status of all the existing hoardings in their respective jurisdiction with appropriate details as to which of these hoardings are authorised and complying with the regulations by November 10, this year.

The Court order states that all these authorities have to submit details with specific remarks that hoardings although permitted are not in any manner a public nuisance in the light of its observations. This information should be submitted in a tabulated form setting out all details with regard to permissions and actions taken. Also a separate statement has to be annexed to such an affidavit in regard to illegal hoardings, the details of the action taken or proposed to be taken in regard to such hoardings with specific reference to the time limit within which such hoardings would be removed. 

The Court further stated that the affidavit should also specify the names of the agencies or land owners who are habitual in putting up illegal hoardings. The authorities will also have to inform the Court as to whether any concrete departmental mechanism is devised to keep information or maintain a database, in regard to the persons who are responsible for putting up hoardings or illegal hoardings including the names of advertising agencies, companies or organisations whose advertisements are the subject matter of hoardings who also become accountable for any illegality and nuisance caused by such hoardings and advertisements being the ultimate beneficiaries having taken the commercial benefit of such illegal hoardings. 

Apart from this, the Court has asked the respondent All Goa Hoarding Owners Association (AGHOA) to file an affidavit in the light of the observations made by the Court and as informed by its counsel Adv Yogesh Nadkarni, that the association would assist the authorities and the citizens of the State to bring about a regime to have only legal and permissible hoardings. 

The NHAI is also directed to place on record its policy in regard to hoardings affecting the national highways. 

During the hearing senior advocate, Saresh Lotlikar who has been appointed as amicus curies told the court that the ghost of the illegal hoardings continues to haunt the cities, national highways and other important places of public interest. He said there is a continuous activity of illegal hoardings being put up immediately after such hoardings are removed by the authorities. He said many of these hoardings exceed the legitimate legal parameters as prescribed under the regulations and are put up at such places, thereby causing a public nuisance affecting the rights of the citizens as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.