Chennai: The Madras high court has directed authorities to issue notices to all recognised political parties to ensure that the defacements carried out by them are properly removed at their own cost.
Passing further orders on the PILs from Elephant G. Rajendran and Traffic Ramaswamy, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan said the notices may be issued within 15 days, giving the political parties one month to take remedial measures and undertake not to do so in future.
After perusing the report filed by the authorities, the bench said the report shows some progress has been made in cleaning up the defacements. The aggravation of the problem was apparent from the fact that still fresh defacements were taking place even on the rocks and natural areas.
The photographs produced by the petitioner disclose the defacement of the natural areas as also over a bridge and sides of the roads. “Thus, prima facie, which we observed is that apart from the commercial defacements number of political parties are equally guilty of defacing the public properties and natural resources. We emphasised to the Additional advocate general that not only the defacements have to be cleared, but the financial repercussions must flow to the violators, who must pay for the expenses incurred for the removal of the defacements. Simultaneously, prosecution must be launched. Once prosecutions are launched the details of the same may be given to the court for fast-tracking those matters. Additional advocate general stated that 141 cases have been registered as of now”, the bench added.
The bench said one of the suggestions which has emanated from the amicus and the petitioner was that political parties must take the responsibility of having violated the law.
“We believe it would be appropriate that the authorities issue notices to all recognised political parties to ensure that the defacements carried out by them are properly removed and the costs for the same be borne by them. List the matter on September 30. At this stage, the petitioner states that he made a complaint to the Election Commission that recognised political parties which are violating the law shall be de-recognized. He states that he will file a separate petition in this behalf, which we will examine when filed”, the bench added.
