Palike legal cell trashes Mathai report, blames advert dept

The K Mathai report on illegal hoardings, on Thursday, came under severe criticism from the legal cell of the Palike, which trashed it outrightly.

The report, prepared by assistant commissioner (advertisement) of BBMP K Mathai, points out unholy nexus between the advertisement agencies and Palike officials. In the report, he has quoted a particular law suit between the Monument Advertisers and BBMP, in which the civic agency lost the case.

The legal cell officers said the Palike had won the case Mathai had referred to. Advocate D Jayaprakash, who fought the case, said the case was a ‘dead horse’ and the court denied the injunction sought by the plaintiff.

“Even though we won the case, no one removed the illegal hoarding,” said Jayaprakash.
The legal cell officers said there were 175 suits in connection with the hoardings, of which there are injunctions in 64 cases, whereas in 111 cases, there are no interim orders.

“When there are no interim orders in 111 cases, why the advertisement section, especially Mathai, does not takes a lead to remove them? What stops him from performing the duty?” said an officer.

The ad section has stated that there are about 23,000 hoardings, of which only 2,000-odd have got permission, the rest are illegal.

“We fight cases assigned to us dedicatedly like in the 111 ad-related suits, where we made sure that no injunction is passed. We are dealing with 6,800-odd litigations in different courts. We removed 22 lawyers and are running the show with 38 lawyers who work day and night,” said a senior legal cell officer. He said that the remarks by Mathai were outrageous and highly deplorable.