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Illegal Billboards in Capital

Removal hampered over HC full verdict

Ashutosh Sarkar
The full text of the High Court verdict on demolishing unauthorised billboards in the capital has not been released even after over three years of its announcement, barring the verdict's enforcement.
Following a writ petition, the HC on April 29,2010 directed Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) authorities to remove or demolish the illegal hoardings with assistance from Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
The HC also lifted its 2007 stay on a government order that barred the erection of billboards on rooftops.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, following a petition filed by Outdoor
Advertising Owners' Association, stayed a portion of the HC order that lifted the stay.
This means that billboards can be installed on rooftops, Rajuk's lawyer Manzill Murshid told The Daily Star recently.
The DCC, now bifurcated to north and south, and Rajuk had removed the illegal billboards through several drives immediately after the HC issued the verdict, he said.
Afterwards, hundreds of illegal billboards have been installed in different places, said Manzill, also president of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, a rights organisation which moved around 100 public interest litigations.
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They could move contempt of court petitions against people responsible for installing illegal billboards if the full text was available, he added. Moreover, they were also not able to move an appeal to vacate the SC order, he said.
The verdict was delivered by the HC bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik and Justice Md Delwar Hossain.
Justice Shamsuddin is now a judge of the SC's Appellate Division. Delwar is no more an HC judge since his service was not renewed after his two-year appointment as an additional judge ended on November 15, 2010, said SC sources.
The HC bench had observed in the short verdict that unauthorised billboards were being placed in unsafe
positions. This was causing those to fall, leading to civilian casualties.
No law will be violated if these billboards are removed since protecting the life of people and their properties is the supreme law, it said, adding that the respondents were legally and constitutionally liable to protect the rights of people.
Two people were killed and eight others were injured when a loosely mounted hoarding on Gulshan Shopping Centre at Gulshan-1 collapsed on them on March 15,2010.
A security guard, Hazarat Ali, was killed on June 17,2006 on Pragati Sarani in a similar incident. Moreover, a hoarding crushed a young man to death near Zia International Airport on May 6,2009.