The court was pleaded to restrain the officials from removing the advertisement billboards. DESIGN: ESSA MALIK
Headed by Irfan Saadat Khan, the bench passed this direction while hearing two identical petitions filed by the outdoor advertisement agencies and their association.
The association, which had earlier gone to court against different political and religious groups for using their outdoor advertisement sites in the city free of cost, claimed that the KMC’s Director (Advertisements) had asked its members to remove their billboards from the sites along the Shara-e-Quaideen to make way for development works to widen the artery.
The petitioner alleged that after the development work was completed, its members made several requests to the Director (Advertisements) to allow them to re-install their billboards, but the official had demanded bribe instead. Upon refusal to fulfill such illegal and unjust demands, the department had removed even more of the advertisement agencies’ billboards, they alleged.
The court was pleaded to restrain the officials from removing the advertisement billboards. In the second plea, three outdoor advertisements agencies had gone to the court against the KMC’s notices directing them to remove their billboards from the areas in Clifton under the pretext of security concerns.
The bench issued notice to the KMC’s Administrator and Director (Advertisements) and others for July 10. Meanwhile, the officials were directed to maintain the status quo with respect to the billboards in question till the next date of hearing.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 2nd, 2013.
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