Dismissing the applications of mobile advertisement truck owners, the Bombay High Court has directed mobile advertisement vehicles to be removed from Mumbai’s roads.
HC censures BMC for ‘not applying its mind’
MUMBAI: Dismissing the applications of mobile advertisement truck owners, the Bombay High Court has directed mobile advertisement vehicles to be removed from Mumbai’s roads. Three mobile advertisement truck owners had challenged the orders passed by the court restraining these vehicles from being parked on the main roads and carriageways. However, holding that the advertisement vehicles violate the law in ways more than one, the court on Monday made its earlier orders absolute.
“We are convinced that these mobile hoarding vehicles are not only obstructions to free flow of traffic but also infringing in public safety, heritage precincts, cause distractions and are dangerous to drivers of other vehicles in the fast moving traffic on the busy roads of Mumbai” Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice VM Kanade said in their order.
The judges were also of the view that the BMC had not taken adequate precaution before granting permission to these trucks to stand on the roads. The court observed that they were not in consonance with the Indian Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 and were allowed to stand in heritage precincts like Marine Drive, Fountain and near the Jahangir Art Gallery.
The court came down heavily on the municipal commissioner Jairaj Phatak for framing new guidelines in 2008 which overlooked the laws violated by these vehicles and said that there appears to be “somewhat non-application of mind” on the commissioner’s part while framing these guidelines and that he had issued a letter permitting the trucks to be parked on the road on March 19 in his “over-anxiety”.
The applications filed by Supri Advertising and Entertainment, Emaan Publicity and Laqshya Media Private Limited had urged the court to modify its order of March 13 and April 3 restraining advertisement trucks as they had already been granted the two-year contract by the BMC and they would suffer “undue hardship” if the contract is abruptly terminated. The court, however, said, “Merely because the corporation is generating some revenue for itself and the applicants (truck owners) have spent a considerable amount in providing vehicular infrastructure for advertisement purpose, per se, is no ground to diminish the value of adherence to law and public necessity”.
The court has directed the BMC to frame appropriate guidelines with regard to these vehicles with reference to their size, design and display.
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