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Report on flagpoles in public places sought
The Madras High Court, on hearing a PIL seeking a direction to ban flagpoles in public places, has asked authorities concerned to file their counter and status reports by January 9.
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
A division bench of Justice M Satyanarayanan and Justice P Rajamanickam, before which the plea came up recently, said in an interim order that statutory provisions would prima facie disclose that erection of flagpoles by any political party or organisation without license or permission was prohibited.
But the provisions are complied with rather in the breach and local body authorities for reasons best know to them turn a “blind eye to the said unlawful cases,” the court said recently. It said putting up flagpoles pose a threat to safety of pedestrians and road-users and it may be the state’s duty to compensate the victims in the event of the poles collapsing on them.
Therefore, the bench said, it is for the local bodies to ensure no flagpoles come up on road margins or pavements or arches without permission. The plea, filed by A Radhakrishnan from Salem, said one of the guidelines issued by the State Election Commission was for removal of flagpoles of all political parties already erected in public places.
He said the commission had issued direction to the police and revenue officials to remove all flagpoles and hoardings put up by the political parties. Besides, the petitioner said, erecting flagpoles temporarily during conferences and public meetings by digging the ground endanger underground telecom cables and electric cables, among others. He said these activities violated the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Public Property Damages and Loss Act.
Recording the submission, the bench directed the registry to send a copy of the interim order to director of Municipal administration and the Commissioner of Corporation of Greater Chennai and DGP and posted the matter for further hearing to January 9.
1,490 people booked for PDS rice smuggling: TN govt
chennai: The State Government has informed the Madras High Court that 442 government officials and 1,490 other individuals have been booked and detained in the past 10 years for PDS rice smuggling. “Out of the 1,490, 131 have been detained more than once under the Prevention of Black-marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act.
This includes 15 people detained more than thrice,” said Principal Secretary, Co-operation, Food and Consumer Protection Department Dayanand Kataria. Kataria made the submission through an affidavit in response to a series of queries raised by a division bench of Justices N Kirubakaran and Abdul Quddhose in connection with rice smuggling. The court had on October 1 directed the Additional Public Prosecutor to file a report on the loss caused to the exchequer and the steps against those smuggling rice. The court had given the direction while disposing of a Habeas Corpus Petition by a woman, challenging her husband’s detention under the Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, 1980.
The official also informed the court on Saturday that as of September 2018, 1.88 crore family cardholders have been getting free rice. The quantity of rice allotted for January 2018 to October 2018 was 32,27,200 metric tonnes, he added. The value of rice distributed to ration card holders for 2017-18 was approximately Rs 2,110 crore and the number of cardholders was rising every month owing to splitting and increasing of families, he said. On the existing mechanism to check rice smuggling, he submitted that after implementation of end-to-end computerisation of PDS, proper mechanism was available to verify distribution of essential commodities to cardholders. Every transaction in fair price shops was carried out through an internet-enabled Point of Sale device.
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