Digital banners & flexboards: give details of permissons in

The Madras High Court today directed Tamil Nadu government to furnish details of permissions granted in 2015 to put up digital banners and flex boards and to inform it of the hiatus time in application for and grant of permission in the cases.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Puspa Satyanarayana, stated this when a PIL filed by 'Traffic' Ramaswamy and 'Satta Panchayat Iyakkam', a social outfit, came up for submission of details of digital banners and flex boards put up in connection with the AIADMK executive and general body meeting on December 31 at Sri Ramachandra Medical college here.

On December 30, the Court had dismissed two PILs filed by them, seeking a prayer not to allow the executive and the general body meetings of AIADMK in the premises of SRMC as it was an educational institution.
The Court had, however, directed the Advocate General to furnish details of fees paid by AIADMK workers to authorities for erection of hoardings, banners and flex boards in connection with meetings.
As per the direction, the Government Pleader submitted all details on permission granted, which showed that five AIADMK functionaries had obtained permissions for fixing the banners.
After going through details that permissions were granted in almost all the cases within a short period, the bench sought to know the speed at which other cases were dealt with.

The bench said affidavit showed permissions were granted to the five to put up between 50 and 100 and hoardings. The amount remitted at Rs 250 per digital banner in the first case was on December 28, while in all others it was on December 30.
"Thus, more or less except in the first case, permission has been granted on the same date on which the application was made and the amount deposited on the same date. We would like to know as to in how many cases in the year 2015 have permissions been granted and what is the hiatus time in other cases between the date of application/deposit of amount and grant of permissions."

It then directed the Government Pleader to file an affidavit within three weeks and posted the matter for compliance to February 12.