A Division Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday refused to pass interim orders on an appeal by the Chennai Corporation Commissioner and stay the operation of an order passed by a single judge of the court on Tuesday imposing a blanket ban across the State on cut-outs, hoardings, flex boards and banners featuring pictures of living persons.
Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and N. Seshasayee directed the High Court Registry to tag the appeal with a public interest litigation petition filed by activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy against flex boards erected for MGR centenary celebrations in Tiruchi and post them before the Bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar on Monday.
During the course of hearing, the judges expressed their anguish over the menace of unauthorised banners and flex boards continuing unabated despite several orders passed by the court. The judges wondered why rules and regulations on display of publicity materials had been framed when the rules were hardly implemented.
“It is very saddening to note that the violators, particularly political parties, are vying with each other to violate the orders passed by this court as well as the statutory provisions with absolute impunity,” the judges had observed then.
Conducting the present appeal on behalf of the Corporation Commissioner, Advocate General Vijay Narayan tried to convince the court that Justice S. Vaidyanathan’s latest order against use of pictures of living persons in publicity materials was an unimplementable order, but Mr. Justice Sathyanarayanan said the order was the result of failure of officials to curb illegal hoardings.
“You have brought forth this misery on your head because of your own inaction... Just three weeks ago, the entire beach stretch beginning from Queen Mary’s College was dotted with digital banners,” the judge told the AG.
“Please touch your heart and tell us if the orders passed by this court on this issue have been complied with or not,” he asked. When the AG said that the misconduct was being dealt with whenever it was brought to the knowledge of the authorities concerned, the judge quipped: “Misconduct has become an order of the day. That is the problem.”
