The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the Tamil Nadu government to file an affidavit by November 7, listing the steps it has taken so far to prevent the erection of illegal flex boards, festoons, buntings, hoardings, cut-outs and the like, which, at times, cause mishaps, leading to loss of lives on public roads.
Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy recorded the submission of State Government Pleader P. Muthukumar that such an affidavit would be filed in the court within a month. The judges said they expected similar affidavits from the local bodies concerned too.
The interim order was passed during the hearing of a batch of cases filed by activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy (since deceased) alleging official inaction against illegal flexboards, and also a petition filed in 2021 regarding the electrocution of a 13-year-old boy during the erecting of DMK flagpoles in Villupuram.
