The State government on Tuesday informed the Kerala High Court that it proposed to formulate a comprehensive plan for dealing with the installation of hoardings, flags and advertisement boards on public places.
State Attorney K.A. Sohan submitted that the government proposed to give separate spaces on public places for political parties as well as advertisement agencies to erect their hoardings and advertisement boards. He further submitted that a committee had been constituted to formulate the plan.
He argued that penalty under the Land Conservancy Act for having erected hoardings and banners on public places could not be imposed. In fact, the Land Conservancy Act was not applicable to these places as they were under the control of local bodies and therefore, rules of local bodies could take care of such illegal erection of hoardings and flex boards.
The submission were made when a case relating to the removal of flex boards, banners and flags from public places came up for hearing before Justice Devan Ramachandran.
The court orally criticised the government for its proposal to provide space for advertisement boards as well as hoardings of political parties on public places. The court said that it never expected the government to take such stand. No individual or political parties should be allowed to erect hoardings or banners or flags on public places illegally. The court did not want to see pedestrians and motorists being hit or injured by collapsing hoardings. The government had not done anything to upend the menace posed by hoardings and advertisement boards.
