Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena has directed Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar to recover Rs. 97.14 crore with interest from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for a number of “political advertisements” published or telecast as government advertisements in 2015 and 2016, official sources said on Tuesday.
Mr. Saxena directed Mr. Kumar to implement the 2016 order of the Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA), a three-member body formed by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on the directions of the Supreme Court.
The CCRGA in September 2016 found various Delhi government advertisements to be in violation of the top court’s guidelines and had asked the Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) to recover the amount spent on those advertisements from the AAP.
AAP’s chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said the L-G was passing “illegal orders” without any jurisdiction. “The most important aspect here is that the L-G has no power to speak on this matter. He is starting to issue directives on matters in which he has no legal stand. He is beginning to think of himself as a shahenshah (emperor) and passing illegal orders which have absolutely no legal standing,” he said.
The L-G has also asked the Chief Secretary to refer all Delhi government advertisements since September 2016 to the CCRGA for ascertaining if they were in consonance with the top court’s guidelines, officials said.
They added that the CCRGA had investigated the advertisements published by the DIP in compliance with a Delhi High Court order. After finding several advertisements to be in “stark violation” of the Supreme Court’s guidelines, the committee had directed the DIP to identify the specific advertisements, quantify the amount spent of them, and recover it from the AAP.
“The DIP ascertained and quantified that an amount of ₹97,14,69,137 had been spent/booked on account of non-conforming advertisements that violated the Supreme Court order. Of this, while payments amounting to ₹42,26,81,265 had already been released by the DIP, ₹54,87,87,872 were still pending disbursal,” the officials said.
The officials said that the DIP had in March 2017 directed AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal to pay ₹42,26,81,265 to the State exchequer immediately, and release the remaining amount of ₹54,87,87,872 within 30 days.
“However, even after a lapse of five years and eight months, the AAP has not complied with this DIP order,” an official said.
