The Delhi High Court today restrained civic body Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) from sealing illegal mobile phone towers in the capital.

In a brief hearing, Justice Kailash Gambhir orally asked the MCD officials present in the court to stop the sealing drive against illegal mobile towers which has been on since yesterday.

The court issued notice to the MCD asking it to explain the reasons behind bringing in the new policy on the issue of regulating mobile towers in the capital.

The court, which restrained the MCD official from sealing the towers till Monday, later allowed the stay on the issue to continue till May 19 after the mobile phone operators pleaded their inability to attend the proceedings on an earlier date.

The MCD had started the sealing of illegal mobile phone towers from May 12 after the deadline for operators to apply for regularisation had expired last week.

The officials concerned of the civic body had reportedly decided to seal at least 60 towers within a week, five each in all the city's 12 municipal zones.

MCD officials earlier had said that out of 5,364 towers in the city, only 2,412 have requisite permission and the remaining 2,952 were illegal.

The civic body had earlier sealed 300 illegal towers and given several deadlines to the tower operators to apply for regularisation in keeping with new guidelines unveiled by it.

The MCD had on February 9 brought in a new policy on mobile towers.

According to the revised guidelines for cell towers, the amount payable by the service providers to MCD for installing a tower has been increased from the present Rs one lakh to Rs 5 lakh.