Impose Fines On Illegal Hoardings; Recommendation Of The Monitoring Committee To The Government

Mumbai, 14th October 2022: It has been recommended to the state government that heavy fines should be imposed on those who display illegal billboards as per the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act. On Thursday, the state government told the High Court that the monitoring committee headed by the Home Secretary, constituted as per the order of the High Court, made this recommendation.

Taking cognizance of it, the court ordered the government to take necessary decisions in view of these recommendations.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Dutta and Justice Makarand Karnik heard the petitions filed regarding the illegal hoarding case. At that time, as per the order of the High Court from 2017, a monitoring committee was constituted by the government under the chairmanship of the Additional Home Secretary. The meeting regarding this committee was held on Wednesday. The committee has accepted four out of five recommendations suggested by the government and all parties to prevent illegal billboards and sent them to the government for further action.

Government advocate Bhupesh Samant informed the court that the government is also positive about these recommendations.

What are the recommendations?

* A legal provision should be made to collect heavy fines from the concerned as soon as illegal billboards are found to be put up like those violating traffic rules.

* QR code should be made mandatory on legal hoardings, so that details of who put up the hoarding, for how many days can be obtained.

* Fixing space for hoardings, creating computerized information on how many hoardings are allowed per day.

Till now, four recommendations have been accepted by the committee and sent to the government for further action. However, the committee rejected the recommendation to monitor illegal billboards like vehicle towing by private organizations.