Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) on Monday filed an affidavit in the Madras High Court listing out a series of steps taken by it since January 2017 to deter its cadres from erecting flex boards for party events and private functions. The party also claimed that it had been following all directions issued by the court so far on the issue and would abide by further orders too.
The affidavit was filed before a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and N. Seshasayee who were seized of a batch of cases filed by activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy against the ubiquitous flex board culture across the State. The Bench, took the affidavit, filed through advocate Richard Wilson, on file and decided to hear the cases on September 25.
R.S. Bharathi, Organising Secretary of DMK, had filed the affidavit, acknowledging the fact that the High Court had been passing orders for the last few years against erection of unauthorised digital banners, flex boards and cut outs since they cause great inconvenience to the pedestrians as well as motorists and even end up taking lives due to motor accidents.
Hence, the party’s incumbent president M.K. Stalin had written a letter to the party cadre on January 29, 2017, when he was holding office as the Working President, and instructed them not to erect the digital banners, flex boards and cut outs illegally. Subsequently, the party headquarters too issued a statement in that regard on June 19,2018.
Even after the death of 22-year-old R. Subasri in a road accident at Pallikaranai here on September 12, after an illegal flex board erected by an AIADMK functionary fell on her while riding a two wheeler, Mr. Stalin had issued a statement the next day, warning the party members of stern action if they erected flex boards illegally. He had also refused to attend the events where flex boards and cut outs had been erected illegally.
