The Centre for Public Interest Litigation, an NGO, on Wednesday urged the >Supreme Court to review its May 13, 2015 verdict allowing the Prime Minister to have his photograph published in government advertisements.
“This gives him [PM] and the political party he belongs to mileage over the political opponents. Recent advertisements would show that such advertisements have the potential to create partisan politics, favouring party in power and putting opposition in bad light,” the petition, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, stated.
In a judgment on May 13, 2015, the Supreme Court had issued guidelines for the publication of government advertisements and held that publication of photographs of politicians and government functionaries, including Chief Ministers, defeated the public interest behind advertising welfare schemes and encouraged “personality cults.”
However, the Bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, exempted the President, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India from this ban, leaving it to their discretion to decide whether they wanted their pictures to published in the ads or not.
In the petition, the NGO said the exemption given to the Prime Minister undermined the letter and spirit of the court’s guidelines.
It further claimed that such pictorial ads defeated the very purpose involved in disseminating information to the citizens about government schemes, policies, welfare programmes and achievements.
