Court rebuke forces NMC to withdraw footpath hoarding tender
Nagpur: In a victory for
pedestrian rights
, the
Nagpur Municipal Corporation
(NMC) withdrew its controversial tender for installing hoardings on city footpaths after the
Bombay high court
's Nagpur bench ruled that such displays violate state rules. The decision came after the court, while hearing a public interest litigation, made clear that municipal policies cannot override state legislation that prioritises public safety.
The tender withdrawal was conveyed on Tuesday by NMC counsel Jemini Kasat during a hearing on a PIL filed by Citizen Forum for Equality President Madhukar Kukde, represented by advocate Tushar Mandlekar. The petition challenged NMC's attempt to permit hoardings on 78 footpath locations, arguing it endangered pedestrians and violated Maharashtra's 2022 advertising rules.
A division bench comprising Justices Nitin Sambre and Vrushali Joshi ruled on April 1 that hoardings cannot be allowed on footpaths, holding that the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations (Regulation and Control of the Display of Sky-Signs and Advertisements) Rules, 2022, take precedence over NMC's two-decade-old 2001 Outdoor Advertising Policy. "Legislative rules override municipal policies," the court declared, directing NMC to respond within a week on its plans to withdraw the tender.
The state rules explicitly bar
hoardings on footpaths
and public roads, thereby rendering NMC's tender process legally unsustainable. The judges made it clear that while the 2001 policy may have been judicially approved earlier, it cannot continue to operate against the 2022 state law enacted in public interest.
NMC earlier defended its policy, citing Rule 29 of the 2022 framework, which it claimed allowed continuation of past court-sanctioned practices. The civic body also referenced a committee report dated March 4, 2024—prepared under the Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Revenue)—which claimed that the proposed hoarding sites posed no threat to pedestrian movement. Based on this report, the administrator approved the tender on March 15, 2024.
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