Remove illegal statues of political leaders at Vellalore bus stand: HC

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court (MHC) directed the State to remove all the political leaders’ statues including former Chief Ministers Kamarajar, M.G Ramachandran, and J Jayalalithaa from the Vellalore bus stand, Coimbatore as it encroached upon the bus stand, and causing inconvenience to the general public.

Petitioner V K Balakrishnan, a DMK functionary from Vellalore moved the MHC seeking to direct the State to remove the statue of Jayalalithaa near the bus stand as it was installed by encroachment. The case was listed before the first division bench comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy. Government pleader, A. Edwin Prabakar, submitted that already instructions were given to the police department to remove the statues.

After the submission, the bench directed the

State to remove all the statues of political leaders which were erected by encroaching on the bus stand. The petitioner contended that an AIADMK functionary V U Marudhachalam who was also the former president of Vellalore panchayat illegally constructing a structure to install a statue for Jayalalithaa, who was a convict in a disproportionate asset (DA) case, said the petitioner.

Encroaching the public space to install a convict statue is not alone illegal but also a mockery of the judicial proceedings and democracy, the petitioner contended. However, the respondent Marudhachalam denied all the allegations and submitted that the accusations placed by the petitioner are false and untenable. The petitioner using his political influence trying to remove late CM Jayalalithaa’s statue which was installed in a way not to cause any inconvenience to the general public, said the respondent.