CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has constituted a three-member monitoring committee for ensuring enforcement of laws regulating the erection of digital banners and hoardings in the State. Justice S Rajeswaran, a retired judge of the High Court, will be the chairman of the committee. Retired IAS officers AS Jeevarathinam and P Ekambaram will be the panel members.
The first bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan constituted the committee, when a contempt application from social worker ‘Traffic’ KR Ramaswamy came up for hearing on Wednesday.
The application sought to punish the Chennai Collector, Corporation Commissioner, Police Commissioner and other police officials for allegedly violating the court’s earlier orders dated January 9 this year, which regulated erection of digital banners.
The committee, besides monitoring the implementation of the orders of the High Court, is to process the complaints received with regard to illegal erection of banners and take suitable action.
Meanwhile, the bench imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on Yantra Media, an advertising agency, for unauthorisedly erecting a digital banner on the banks of Adyar river on Dr Durghabhai Deshmukh Road. The firm approached the High Court to restrain the authorities concerned from interfering with its ad business.
The bench, however, found that the hoarding had been unauthorisedly erected and imposed the cost to be paid within 15 days to the Mediation and Conciliation Centre attached to the High Court. The firm should remove the hoarding within two days, the bench added.
In yet another case, the bench permitted KK Enterprises to withdraw a similar petition and directed it to remove its illegal hoardings erected at the same venue.