Learn from Mumbai hoarding collapse, Calcutta HC tells Bengal municipal corporation

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) in the northern outskirts of Kolkata to take lessons from the recent hoarding collapse in Maharashtra, which left 16 people dead and act against the innumerable illegal hoardings that have flooded the area under the civic body's jurisdiction.

The division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya also directed the BMC authorities to arrange for the removal of all such illegal hoarding within the next two days.

It also directed that the officials of the advertising agency refusing to remove such illegal hoardings should also be arrested besides imposing a financial penalty on them.

The division bench also directed the state government to give a report to the court by December 20 on whether the order on this count has been implemented or not.

The court passed this order on the public interest litigation filed by Dibayan Bandopadhyay, himself a legal professional, earlier this year on the menace of illegal hoarding within the BMC area.

In the petition, he claimed that despite the huge amount of tax lost by the corporation with the hoardings involved coming without permission or due payments, the civic authorities had not been serious about the issue of illegal hoardings.

In the interim period, the state government gave a report to the court stating that a total of 351 illegal hoardings within the BMC area have been identified.

Thereafter the Chief Justice questioned the silence of the corporation authorities in the matter and even observed that it seemed that the silence was deliberate. The state government counsel, however, on Thursday assured the bench of prompt administrative action in the matter.