Chennai: Madras High Court gives permission for the erection of flex boards, from Chennai airport to Mahabalipuram, on behalf of the Centre and Tamil Nadu government to welcome President of China Xi Jinping.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President, Xi Jinping to meet at Mahabalipuram near Chennai in Tamil Nadu on October 11 to discuss the bilateral trade and relationship between two countries.
Ahead of the visit, Municipal Administration Commissioner, Baskaran, on behalf of Ministry of External Affairs and Information and Public Relation Department of Tamil Nadu, has filed a petition in Madras High Court seeking permission from the court to erect flex banners welcoming Modi and Xi Jinping.
The petitioner has sought permission to erect flex banners at 14 places from Chennai Airport to Mahabalipuram from October 9 to 13.
When the petition came to hearing before the bench consisting Justice Sathyanarayanan and Seshayi, social activist Traffic Ramaswamy appeared before the court, pleading the court not to give permission for the flex banners and cancel the petition.
Senior advocate Wilson appearing for DMK told court that DMK has submitted the affidavit over following court orders on digital banners and pointed out that AIADMK has not submited such affidavit. Wilson also argued that even if the permission is granted to erect banners, it should be the state government and not by any political parties.
Advocate General, Vijay Narayanan appearing for Tamil Nadu government submitted the photographes where there flex banners are to be erected. He also assured the court that they will abide by the court order if the court permits to erect flex banners since Modi and Jinping are to arrive at Mahabalipuram on road and stay there for two days.
Questioing over the pervious order banning the digital banners all over Tamil Nadu in December 2018, justices pointed out that the Tamil Nadu government is yet to create new rules on digital or flex banners and instructed the government to create the rules in first place.
Adjourning the hearing to October 23, the justices observed that the state government need not provide any assurance and banners could be erected, after obtaining due permissions from the local body officials as per the norms.
It could be remembered that there was an uproar in Tamil Nadu after 23-year-old woman, R Subasri, a software engineer by profession, was killed in a road accident on September 12 in Chennai while riding her two-wheeler to work after an illegal hoarding put up by AIADMK party workers fell on her, resulting which, Shubashree fell on the road and was crushed to death by a tanker truck.
An online campaign, whokilledshubashree went viral and there was a public outcry to arrest the AIADMK party worker, Jayagopal who erected the illegal banner. Jayagopal was finally arrested by Chennai police on September 27.
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