High court comes tough on illegal hoarding, will civic bodies comply?

When TN Seshan presided over the Central Election Commission of India, he issued a simple fatwa: There shall be no disfiguring of walls, private or public, with slogans of political parties or candidates. If not followed, it would be an electoral offence. Politicians immediately stayed clear of the walls, making their owners breathe easy. Earlier neither could they approach authorities with complaints nor ask the politicians to desist from marring their personal properties. They feared the consequences. Seshan’s dictate was limited to misuse of other’s properties during election campaigns without the owners’ leave though the hardened practice now is to put up a banner or a billboard just anywhere, sometimes even pasting them over a commercial advertisement legally put up on approved sites.[caption id=“attachment_1656475” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Political hoardings all over. AFP [/caption] Now the Bombay High Court’s two-member bench comprising justices Abhay Oka and AS Chandurkar has asked the Election Commission if it could act against political parties. Apparently political parties are the biggest mischief-makers in rendering cities ugly. Of course, two political parties, BJP and NCP have told the court they would not resort to illegal billboards and the court wants political parties like the Congress, Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and others to file their say. The two have given their undertaking also affirmed that they would cooperate and not obstruct their removal if any illegal hoards are up anywhere. That is a big gain and hard for other parties not to fall in line. But getting this far has not been easy. The high court is working hard to ensure that politicians and political parties do not mess with the cities’ aesthetics by erecting billboards—‘hoardings’ is the much common word—just anywhere without even the leave of the civic bodies. Different benches over time have been sternly dealing with this unbridled use of city spaces to provide the citizens relief from the almost pervasive ugliness of their towns and cities. Hoardings are not an election-time malaise alone but a round-the-year problem in all cities. Politicians, and more often their followers, put them up either to proclaim their own or their leaders’ birthdays or appointments either in government or to some nominal post within the party’s borough branch itself. They curry favour with leaders, thanking them for support. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had explained in 2011 that, “They put their photos on welcome banners alongside big politicians’ because they want to boast about their proximity to the leaders. This is just not on. These workers don’t realise they are littering their city.” Getting a poster done in multi-colours is no big deal and all one needs is a snap or two and a few slogans in hand. The poster-billboard makers deliver them overnight at prices you’d be surprised at because it is a competitive cottage industry of sorts. Think tonight of a reason, however innocuous, and be up there tomorrow morning at any site obstructing anything, even traffic signals or the only window of a home. Or even draped even over someone else’s legitimate billboard, no questions asked because politicians and their thugs are powerful. The latest is the high court order yesterday which required each city and town to appoint their respective nodal officers who would monitor illegal hoardings, to deal with citizen’s complaints and act with police help. Toll-free numbers and acceptance of anonymous complaints have been ordered. According to statistics, political parties are indeed the culprits. The Times of India reported “large instance of illegality are due to political parties or their workers”. Of the 3.54 lakh hoardings removed by Mumbai municipality, 2.79 lakh were put up by political parties or their workers. However, civic bodies are not, as per their track records, are not up to ending this menace though the figures mentioned indicate some action. They lose revenue which would have come to them had they forced all poster-mongers to pay the standard charges plus fines. Over a year ago, The Indian Express had reported how, following a court order then, Mumbai’s civic chief had spoken of a zero-tolerance of Delhi to illegal hoardings though there are more politicians there than anywhere else. He wanted to follow the Delhi’s ways but has been unsuccessful. In mid-March last year, following a “High Court’s stern words” had “forced (emphasis added) the civic body to swing into action with hoardings being pulled down”. Navi Mumbai and Thane had followed suit but apparently they were short-lived campaigns. Or else, the courts wouldn’t have had to persist. Civic bodies act decisively in these matters only on court orders. In Satara, when asked by the high court in October 2012 that the municipality act against the practice, it satisfied itself by slapping notices on printers of the posters. When the high court demanded firm action, Satara took them down in a week’s time. A Bench comprising justices AM Khanwilkar and AP Bhangaleat that time ordered other cities to follow suit. “When Satara Municipal Corporation can do it in one week, why can’t you?” In March 2013, the court had set a deadline of 24 hours to have all such illegal hoardings removed across the state’s urban landscape. The reluctance of the civic bodies, because it involved the biggest—or most influential or menacing stakeholder, the politicians and political parties—is evident from how a Thane Municipal Commissioner was fined Rs 5,000 by the high court for not acting on the hoardings. He and three other officials were found wanting in 2009 in removing two hoardings from a public place because they were not among the ones the court had ordered removed. That had infuriated the court which emphasised that removing them was obviously the civic body’s business.