Chennai: The state government has informed the Madras high court that necessary and serious efforts have been made to prevent the unauthorised erection of digital banners/placards and continuous monitoring would be done by the district collectors, superintendents of police, commissioners of police and other local body authorities/officials.
Inviting the attention of the court to the affidavit filed by the state chief secretary, additional advocate general S.R.Rajagopal assisted by V.Jayaprakash Narayan, Government Pleader (in-charge), made the above submission before a division bench comprising Justices M.Sathyanarayanan and M.Nirmal Kumar when a contempt petition filed by social activist Traffic Ramaswamy came up for hearing on Thursday. Recording the same, the bench posted to June 13, further hearing of the case.
The bench said it was also seen that the affidavit of the chief secretary is silent with regard to the disposal of the digital banners/placards after the purpose is over and this court, in the earlier orders, had also indicated that the digital banners/placards, after put to use, may likely to cause environmental degradation. Therefore, necessary additional affidavit is to be filed by the chief secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu, as to the manner of the disposal of the digital banners/placards after the same were put to use, the bench added. In his affidavit, the chief secretary among other things stated that the government was taking serious efforts to prevent the erection of unauthorized digital banners/placards and penal action was also resorted to by way of filing FIRs and collecting penalty and fine and the principal secretary to government, municipal administration and water supply department has also addressed a letter to all the district collectors to give top priority to this item of work and monitor the removal of the unauthorized digital banners/placards and closely monitor the situation and enforce the rules stringently.
