Make reasonable policy, stall removal for time being: HC to CIDCO after plea by hoarding owners | Mumbai News
Make reasonable policy, stall removal for time being: HC to CIDCO after plea by hoarding owners | Mumbai News
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The Bombay High Court on Monday asked CIDCO to stall its move to remove the hoarding concerned and instead suggested they come up with a policy or regime for hoardings located within their jurisdiction or area. The court was hearing a plea by advertisement agencies challenging the notices issued by City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) to remove alleged illegal hoardings in Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area (NAINA).
A vacation bench of Justices NR Borkar and Somasekhar Sundaresan also remarked that civic authorities said nothing to the advertising firms until the Ghatkopar hoarding collapse incident.
Firms including Devangi Outdoor Advertising and Harmesh Dilip Tanna, proprietor of Gargee Graphics, had approached the High Court stating that CIDCO did not have the jurisdiction to send such notices. The petitioners claimed they had erected the hoardings legally after obtaining necessary permissions from authorities.
Despite this, they said they have received notices for removal of hoardings within 24 hours or face action under Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act (MRTP). As per petitioners, the authorities have warned them that if hoardings were not removed, they would dismantle them and recover costs from the owner.
The notices by CIDCO come in wake of the collapse of a hoarding on a petrol pump in Ghatkopar on May 13, which killed 17 people. CIDCO purportedly issued notices to several hoarding owners after the unfortunate incident.
Advocate for the petitioner firms, Mohsin Khan, argued that the notices were issued without a show-cause notice, which violated the principles of natural justice. Khan also claimed that authorities failed to verify the structural stability of the hoardings before issuing the notice, hence the action amounted to being arbitrary and ex-facie illegal.
However, CIDCO’s lawyer submitted that the authority had issued notices to several owners of hoardings after discovering they had been installed without requisite permissions. The lawyer claimed that the same exercise was crucial as it was within the Navi Mumbai airport region. The corporation also claimed that the hoardings erected since 2018–19 had applied for permission in 2023, including those by the petitioners.
The bench sought to know if the authority had conducted any structural audit of all hoardings within its domain, and whether the authority was planning to bring a regime or policy in place for illegal hoardings within its area.
These hoardings are not brought back to CIDCO, the bench said, and until the Ghatkopar incident, nobody said anything. In these circumstances, the bench asked if the corporation should at least not study whether the hoardings pose any danger, instead of bringing them down?
“Have a reasonable policy view, otherwise case by case people will come. If you decide to demolish everything, that is also different. We are placing this on May 30. Till next date, if it is not pulled down, we are asking you to hold it,” the bench said.
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