Billboards be removed from Karachi’s public places within 15 days: SC

Says roads, sidewalks, overhead bridges, underpasses, walkways, greenbelts, pedestrian lanes cannot be allowed to be used for installation of billboards

KARACHI:  The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, cantonment boards and other authorities concerned to remove within 15 days all the billboards installed without permission on public property within their jurisdiction.

“There is no law which permits the KMC, DMC, cantonment boards or any other agency in Karachi to install billboards or hoardings on  public property,” a three-member bench headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar observed in a matter regarding illegal advertising signboards in the city.

“Such an act on the part of the permission granting agency is against the civil rights of  citizens. The civil rights of citizens cannot be hampered by erecting billboards or hoardings on the civic amenity meant for the use and benefit of the public at large; besides, such an act would endanger the life and property of the common man.”

The bench further observed that no billboard could be permitted to be installed on any public property by any authority under the garb of by-laws, as that would militate against the civil rights of the public at large.

It said billboards/ hoardings installed on public property under any licence or lease “shall be uprooted by June 30, 2016” by the concerned advertising agencies that owned those poles or display materials or by contractors if they owned such material or by the authorities with whose permission the billboards or hoardings had been put up.

The apex court observed that trees on roads and greenbelts were cut off for the installation of hoardings. It noted that public property included roads, sidewalks, overhead bridges, underpasses, overhead pedestrian bridges, walkways, greenbelts, pedestrian lanes and storm water drains, which could not be allowed to be used for the installation of billboards.