The Bombay High Court has allowed CIDCO to undertake demolition of illegal giant hoardings in the Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area (NAINA) after the owners and advertising agencies failed to remove the same as per undertaking given to the HC on May 30.
On May 30, the owners had approached the HC challenging the notices issued by CIDCO asking them to pull down their hoardings within 24 hours or face demolition. When the court refused to entertain the pleas, they agreed to pull them down themselves within four weeks, which expired on June 27.
Hence, they filed applications on May 28, seeking extension of 90 days to bring down the hoardings. Their advocate Uday Warunjikar submitted they could not comply with the undertaking due to shortage of cranes.
Mr Warunjikar submits that there is a shortage of cranes and therefore, there was no compliance. He requests for an additional ninety days to report compliance.
CIDCO’s counsel Chetan Kapadia opposed the applications submitting that the hoardings were put up in breach of law and without obtaining any permissions from any authorities except the Gram Panchayat which was not even the competent authority to permit erection of such hoardings. Pointing out that the May 30 order of HC is self-operative, Kapadia said that the planning authority’s action against such hoardings should not be halted.
The court noted that although four weeks have expired, the applicants are “nowhere close to compliance” of the undertaking. “Instead, this application seeks a further 90 days to comply… The reason now cited (shortage of cranes0 does not appeal to us. In any case, we presume that CIDCO does not have any shortage of cranes or the wherewithal to take action by law for the removal of these unauthorised hoardings,” a bench of Justices MS Sonak and Kamal Khata said on Friday.
Warunjikar pointed out that on May 30, the court had permitted them to approach CIDCO seeking revision of its policy to revisit outdated permissible dimensions of hoardings. The Hc has asked CIDCO to consider the same expeditiously.
On Friday, the HC noted that this had nothing to do with the removal of unauthorised hoardings. “This leave, at the highest, might facilitate the erection of such hoardings in the future by the Applicants after following the due process of law,” the bench added.
The judges emphasised that the CIDCO was asked to defer its action based on their undertaking that they would themselves bring down the non-compliant hoardings and after that, they would apply to CIDCO for fresh permission for the erection of compliant hoardings.
Disapproving with the delay tactic, the judges said: “After securing the postponement of the demolitions scheduled for the next day, the Applicants now wish to renege on their solemn commitment and do not want to demolish the unauthorised hoardings.”
It termed the request of ninety days as “not at all bonafide” and said that this was nothing but “a request for breaching the solemn undertaking given to this Court”.
The court was not pleased with their request to permit them to seek regularisation, saying it was “completely misconceived” since the structures are “wholly unauthorised and are impermissible under the current policy”. “Therefore, the Applicants had themselves requested a revision of the policy. In these circumstances, after the Applicants have given an undertaking to remove the hoardings, there is no question of entertaining such a request,” the judges underlined.
“Though this was a fit case for imposition of costs, we refrain from doing so only at the request of Mr Warunjikar. The order dated 30 May 2024 was indeed self-operative. The consequences should therefore follow,” the bench concluded while asking CIDCO to go ahead with demolition.
