Bom HC prohibited hoardings on road of Goa

Bombay High Court: Dismissing a petition which had challenged the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations, 2010, a bench comprising of Hon’ble B R Gavai and F M Reis, JJ has held that restrictions imposed on the hoardings to be erected along the road of less than 10m is in the larger public interest. In the present case, the petitioner had approached the court challenging the validity of Regulations No. 17.1 to 17.10 of the GLDBCR, stating that it was being violative of Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution
. The learned counsel for the petitioner contended that since most of the roads in Goa are having width of less than 10 meters therefore the said regulation (17.5) was taking away the right guaranteed to a citizen to carry on any occupation, trade or business. The Court rejected other contentions of the petitioner and refused to interpret Regulation 17.10 as it did not apply to the petitioner’s case. The Court noted that it has already taken suo motu cognizance of the issue of illegal hoardings erected in the state of Goa and is monitoring the issue in a public interest litigation writ petition. The judges observed that one of them (Hon’ble F M Reis, J) is the resident of the state and other one of them (Hon’ble B R Gavai, J) had in the recent past, occasions to travel through the roads of Goa, and in most of the places, they found that the roads to be heavily congested and if such hoardings were to be permitted on such narrow roads, one could only imagine what disaster it would lead to. [Milind Prabhu vs. State of Goa, Writ Petition No. 746 of 2013, decided on December 11, 2013]