BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Gwalior Bench ordered on Wednesday the removal of tiles bearing pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state's chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan within three months from the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) houses in the state.
The order was passed by the High Court's division bench comprising Justices Sanjay Yadav and Vivek Agrawal while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed in the matter by a journalist Sanjay Purohit.
The HC bench while ordering the removal of such tiles from the houses built under the PMAY scheme directed the state government to file a compliance report by December 20. Earlier, the state government informed the HC about its recent order (dated September 8, 2018) through which it has cancelled the previous government order to fix tiles embedded with the pictures of the PM and the MP CM in houses built under the PMAY in the state.
The September 8, 2018 order issued by the state government's urban administration and development department annuls the earlier department order, in line with the central government's order clearly stipulating that the tiles will only bear the PMAY logo and no other picture, the counsel for the petitioner Ankur Modi informed journalists in Gwalior.
A few weeks back the PIL had been filed before the HC, challenging the state government order about fixing of tiles bearing the PM and MP CM's pictures at the entrance and outside the kitchen of the houses built under the scheme aimed at rendering affordable houses to every poor family by 2022.
"We had submitted before the court that it's not the personal funds of anyone or any political party, but instead the tax payers' money which is spent by the government on building houses under the PMAY. By ordering the fixing of tiles bearing PM and CM's pictures, the government is indulging in promoting their personal image," said Modi.
The HC had subsequently issued notices to the central and state government, seeking their reply in the matter. Last month, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs had submitted in its reply to the HC that it had not given any such order, as the tiles should only bear the scheme's logo. Importantly, in April this year the state government had issued a circular directing to fix tiles bearing PM and CM's pictures in the PMAY houses of around 2.86 lakh people in MP.