Activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy on Tuesday complained to the Madras High Court against government advertisements featuring former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, which were published in newspapers ahead of the Global Investors’ Meet (GIM) in Chennai.
Submitting copies of the dailies concerned before a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and P. Rajamanickam, he wondered how photographs of a former CM could find a place in advertisements published at the State’s expense when the Supreme Court had laid down clear guidelines for the publication of such advertisements.
He recalled that a batch of cases was filed in the Supreme Court in 2003 and 2004 against the use of public funds to project the image of politicians through government advertisements. However, since such advertisements could not be banned in toto, the court had, in 2014, appointed a committee to deliberate on the issue.
Panel’s recommendation
A committee comprising the former director of the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal, N.R. Madhava Menon, former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha T.K. Viswanathan and senior counsel Ranjit Kumar discussed the issue and submitted a set of guidelines for regulating the content of government advertisements.
Thereafter, on May 13, 2015, a two-judge Bench, led by the incumbent Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, disapproved of the practice of “unproductive expenditure of public funds” and approved the Government Advertisements (Content Regulation) Guidelines, 2014, submitted by the committee.
Observing that photographs had the potential to develop a personality cult and that the use of public funds to boost the image of individuals was antithesis to democratic functioning, the Bench said the legitimate and permissible object of an advertisement could always be achieved without the publication of photographs.
Agreeing with the committee’s recommendation that photographs of only the President, the Prime Minister, the Governor and the Chief Minister should be published in government advertisements, the Bench said there could also be an exception in the case of the CJI, who may take a final decision on the issue concerned.
Subsequently, on March 18, 2016, the same Bench relaxed its order and permitted the publication of photographs of Ministers in lieu of those of the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister.
“However, by no stretch of imagination could the photograph of a former CM be printed at State cost,” Mr. Ramaswamy claimed.
Agreeing to hear the matter as and when his public interest litigation petition on the issue gets listed before it, the Bench, led by Justice Sathyanarayanan, asked Special Government Pleader E. Manohar to verify, in the meantime, whether there had been any other modifications to the Supreme Court’s order.
