High Court pulls up TN govt over hoardings issue

Making strong observations, the court said authorities were taking their own time in implementing various orders related to regulation of hoardings passed as early as 2011.

A division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice N Seshasayee said the high court was made to "waste most of its precious" time in handling litigations concerning less important issues.

Justice Sathyanarayanan said, "No orders of the Court are obeyed by the officials. A banner in front of my house which is there for several days has not been removed till date."

The bench made the remarks during the hearing of an appeal by the commissioner of city corporation against the October 24 order of Justice S Vaidyanathan prohibiting use of photographs or pictures of living persons on banners, flex boards, sign-boards across the state.

Declining the prayer of Advocate General Vijay Narayan, who appeared for the government, for at least a stay on the order related to the ban on using photos of living persons, the bench adjourned the hearing on the appeal till Monday.

The AG argued that the single judge's order was an error against the Constitutional right of an individual as it in a way restricted advertisement and its contents.

"How can an advertisement contain only pictures of persons who are not alive?" Narayan asked and pressed for a stay.

Rejecting the plea, the bench said: "When the courts are made to wait for years for the authorities to implement rules regarding erection of digital banners and orders of the court passed as early as 2011, the government can wait for two more days to get any relief even though the single judge order might be erroneous."

The bench then tagged the appeal with a petition filed by social activist "Traffic" Ramaswamy in connection with the erection of banners in Tiruchirappalli for the birth centenary celebrations of ruling AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran.

The judges observed that the ground level officers from the rank of tehsildar were used for the distribution of freebies and supervise the same whereas the Constitutional courts like the high courts were burdened with petitions such as seeking directions for issuing patta.

The bench said if the officials were allowed to do their work, litigations such as those for patta might have been avoided and the "precious time of the Constitutional courts may have not been wasted".

Most of the court's time was wasted in issuing directions to the authorities to consider the representations presented by the public, it said.

The AG submitted that apart from banners, there were other illegalities in matters like constructions and encroachments and the government was taking steps on a priority basis to set them right.

To this, Justice Sathyanarayana said: "With regard to illegal buildings, once I have passingly said to my brother judge that only earthquake can rectify such illegalities and there is no other way to solve this menace."