The High Court of Karnataka on Saturday asked the State Advocate-General to get a response from the city police on the allegation made by a petitioner that a sub-inspector of police, attached to the Byatarayanapura Police Station, was transferred from the post after he registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Minister D.K. Shivakumar and others for not removing illegal structures put up on their property in Pantharapalya to display advertisements.
The court also sought a response on an another allegation made in the affidavit filed by the petitioner that Byatarayanapura police later had filed a ‘B’ report on that FIR on the ground that Mr. Shivakumar removed the structure after registration of the FIR, instead of initiating further proceedings against him for illegally putting up the structure as was done in all other such cases.
The FIR was registered based on the complaint, lodged by BBMP’s Rajarajeshwarinagar Revenue Officer Muthuraj on September 24, 2018 stating that Mr. Shivakumar and others had not removed illegal structure put up on their property bearing number 219/20A/23, Pantharapalya on Mysuru Road.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice S. Sujatha issued the direction during the special sitting, for hear the PIL petitions related illegal hoardings, flexes, banners in the city, after going through the affidavit filed by Sai Datta, one of the petitioners.
While asking A-G Udaya Holla to get response from the police, the Bench orally observed that if anybody thought they could get away with such illegal acts, they would have to face the law, while expressing no opinion on the allegations made in the affidavit.
Meanwhile, BBMP counsel V. Sreenidhi told the Bench that now only 1,806 advertisement hoarding structures exist in the city either based on stay orders from the courts or pending disputes over whether they were authorised or not, and all other unauthorised structures were either dismantled by the BBMP or their owners themselves.
The Bench asked the BBMP to complete the process of finalising the advertisement byelaws after BBMP counsel said that a committee has already scrutinised around 1,200 responses received for the draft byelaws in the form of suggestions and objections and would would seen organise public hearing based on request made in around 800 such responses. Further hearing has been adjourned till December 1.
Video call verification
In an curious instance, the High Court of Karnataka on Saturday allowed BBMP officials present in the court room to use the video call facility from their mobile phone to ascertain the claim that banned flex material was used by BBMP itself while organising a Janaspandana programme at Town Hall on Saturday. Generally, the use of mobile phones is prohibited both inside and outside court rooms.
This was after advocate Rameshchandra, appearing for one of the petitioners, told the court that he saw banners put up using flex material in front of Town Hall while he was driving on his way the court.
Following this, an officer of the BBMP present inside the court room, walked out of the room and made a video call to another officer present at Town Hall. Later, the BBMP counsel told the Bench that fabric was used for putting up banner and not the banned material. However, the Bench later asked both the BBMP counsel and Mr. Rameshchandra to ascertain their respective claims.
