Give us in writing that your workers won't put up banners: Bombay High Court to parties

The Bombay High Court on Thursday directed three political parties to file an undertaking before it that they would give directions to its party members to refrain themselves from putting up political posters and banners across the city.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice A S Chandurkar also sought the Republican Party of India (A), Nationalist Congress Party and Bharatiya Janata Party to undertake whether they would help the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in removing the banners if they have been put up.

The directions were given during the hearing of a public interest litigation filed by Suswarajya Foundation which highlighted the problem of ugly political hoardings springing up in city and across the state every now and then.

The civic body informed the court that in 2013 nearly 30,000 posters were removed by the corporation of which 24,000 were political hoardings. Similarly, in 2012, BMC pulled down nearly 63,000 posters, while 90 per cent of them were political banners.

Earlier, the high court had directed the corporations of Mumbai, Pune, Thane and Navi Mumbai to take action against illegal hoardings within 48 hours.

Advocate Uday Warunjikar, who appeared for the petitioner, had argued that no matter how many drives the corporation carried out, the hoarding menace would continue, until the political parties were held responsible.