IMPORTANT POINT
The installation of statues by municipal authorities falls within their discretionary powers under the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, and such actions are justified when they serve public safety and sentiment.

JUDGMENT/ORDER

G.S. PATEL J. - Rule, returnable forthwith. Respondents waive service. There is now a final Affidavit in Reply from the Pune Municipal Corporation ("PMC") filed by one Abhijit P Dombe, presently Executive Engineer, Road Department.

2. The controversy in this matter, almost unbelievably, pertains to a statue. It is of Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve and it has been installed at Kothrud, Pune on the Kothrud Karve Road.

3. The three reliefs that the Petitioner seeks are the two prayers both numbered as (b) and the one prayer numbered as (c) at pages 22 and 23 of the paperbook. They read:

a. That this Hon'ble Court be pleased to issue a Writ of Mandamus or any writ order or direction in the nature of mandamus calling for the record and proceedings regarding the installation of the said statue at Kothrud Karve Road; and after examining the legality and propriety thereof, be pleased to direct the Respondent No 1 to remove the said statue from the triangular comer portion of the acquired property situated at Survey No. 1 Hissa No 4, CTS No.406 to 434, Kothrud Karve Road, Pune, admeasuring approximately 1500 sq metres and to utilize the triangular comer portion of the acquired property for the purpose of road widening; in the alternative,

b. this Hon'ble Court be pleased to issue a Writ of Mandamus or any writ order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the Respondent No 1 to remove the said statue from the triangular corner portion of the acquired property situated at Survey No. 4, CTS No.406 to 434, Kothrud Karve Road, Pune admeasuring approximately 1500 sq metres. and to restore possession of the same to the Petitioner, upon payment by the Petitioner of the market value of the same;

c. That this Hon'ble Court be pleased to issue a Writ of Certiorari or any writ, order or direction in the nature of Certiorari, calling for the records and proceedings relating to the passing of the impugned order dtd. 10/4/2023, and after examining the legality, propriety and validity thereof, be pleased to quash and set aside the same;

4. Prayer (c), for a certiorari, ought to have been the first prayer; a mandamus prayer can never precede a prayer for a certiorari. The first prayer (b) is a peculiar hybrid that seeks a mandamus calling for the record (surely a prayer for a writ of certiorari) and bundles this with a prayer for a mandamus to remove the statue from the 'triangular corner portion of the acquired property'. This is partly replicated in the second prayer (b), but this goes further and seeks to reverse a closed acquisition of 1500 sq mts of land.

5. The reference in the last prayer to Exhibit 'K' (page 94), dtd. 10/4/2023, is an order by the PMC's officers to remove certain hoardings. That order came to be passed ostensibly because these hoardings, of which we will have something to say a little later, interfered with the 'purity and beauty' of the statue.

6. Three questions that present themselves to us: First, who is the Petitioner? Second, where is the statue that the Petitioner finds it so very objectionable? And third, why does the Petitioner want the statue gone?

7. The Petitioner owns a tract of land obviously in Kothrud. This is CTS Nos. 406 to 434 of the Kothrud Karve Road. Part of this, an area of about 1500 sq mts, was taken over by the PMC for road widening.

8. The Petitioner has given a license to one Ketki Ads to erect a display hoarding. The supporting structure of that hoarding is on the Petitioner's remaining land. The Petitioner derives an income from Ketki Ads for this license. This begins to answer the who and the why.

9. For it seems that the visibility of the Ketki Ads hoarding is somehow said to be impaired or impeded by the statue of Maharshi Karve (or, according to the PMC, vice versa).

10. But that statue itself has been on a bit of journey, as the Affidavit in Reply tells us. Paragraph 4 says that in 2006, although it may have been somewhat earlier, the statue of Maharshi Karve was installed a