The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved on a petition seeking guidelines for Central and State governments on issuing advertisements in the media, highlighting the programmes, policies and achievements on the eve of elections or on the birthdays of leaders.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N.V. Ramana on a writ petition filed by Common Cause in 2003 and Centre for Public Interest Litigation in 2004 for a mandamus to the Centre and the States to desist from issuing large-sized advertisements in newspapers for commemorating any political personality or event, or for making the inauguration of a project to avoid enormous and unwarranted expenditure to the exchequer.
The Bench asked counsel for the parties to give their suggestions within one week to enable the court to frame necessary guidelines in this regard.
The petition was filed in the wake of ‘India shining’ advertisements issued by the NDA government trumpeting its achievements. Subsequently the petitioner filed an application drawing court’s attention to media campaign launched by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on completion of one year in office in 2012. It said many of these advertisements contained photographs of government functionaries and important political personalities and sought to glorify them to create an impression that they were responsible for providing benefits to the people.
During the course of arguments on Wednesday, the CJI Sathasivam asked counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for CPIL whether there could be any objection for a government issuing advertisements to inform the public about its policies and programmes without the photographs of leaders.
Mr. Bhushan said, “I have no objection but even this is wrong as this could be misused for issuing advertisements with an eye on political mileage.”
When the CJI wanted to know whether advertisements of government with photograph of the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister to convey something to the people was also not permissible, counsel said this could also be misused.
Senior counsel K. Radhakrishnan appearing for the Centre submitted that there were enough guidelines for issuance of advertisements by various ministries and departments, the CJI said “these guidelines had nothing to do with the issue before the court.” The Bench then reserved verdict on the petitions.
