BENGALURU: Orally observing that Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is the enemy no. 1 of the city, the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed the Palike to conduct a survey of hoardings, boards and flexes erected in its limits and submit details regarding permission granted, fee collected, and action taken against the violators in the past three years.
The court directed the Palike to proceed on show cause notices issued to officials who failed to curb illegal hoardings in the city.
The court asked it to submit a report to it on the action taken on November 28. A division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit passed the order after going through data on the penalty collected and number of show cause notices issued over illegal advertisements.
‘47 cases registered against unauthorised advertisers’
The bench was hearing a batch of public interest litigations. Senior counsel Ravivarma Kumar, representing a petitioner, submitted that the casual approach of the Palike not only led to a huge loss of revenue but also to rampant growth of illegal advertisements. The menace of hoardings is also defacing the city.
He argued that hundreds of hoardings have been erected on flyovers and the Palike officials are hand-in-glove with the advertisers. Then the court orally observed that thousands of crores of rupees are lost and that is why the counsel is pointing it out. It is a loss to the Palike. To overcome this loss, the Palike will burden citizens with additional taxes. Therefore, the BBMP is the first enemy of the city, the court said.
Meanwhile, the Palike filed its response stating that it has registered 47 cases against unauthorised advertisers and collected a penalty of Rs 5.12 lakh from them in all eight zones after the court passed its order on August 2. This was after surveying sub-arterial roads of approximately 1,400 km in the first phase. A survey of other roads will be conducted in the second phase.
Based on the court’s directive on the previous date of hearing, 242 show cause notices have been issued to errant officials in seven zones for dereliction of duty or for being slow and lethargic in performing their duties, the Palike stated.