The Supreme Court on Tuesday imposed strict curbs on “politically motivated” advertisements in the media by governments and leaders issued at the cost of public funds, and said photographs of only President, Prime Minister and Chief Justice of India can be published.
A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana accepted most of the recommendations of the court-mandated panel but differed with it on also allowing photographs of Governors and Chief Ministers of states in newspapers and other media.
The bench directed the government to appoint a three-member panel of ombudsman to ensure its directions are complied with.The bench held that photographs have the tendency of associating personalities with social benefit schemes and this was antithesis to the Indian democracy.
Stating that restrictions was not required against publication of ads on the eve of elections, the bench said that it hoped the government would adhere to all the directives issued by it.
The bench further said there was no need to direct periodic special performance audit.
It noted that there was no legislation on the matter and hence the top court could issue directives to fulfill the mandates of the directive principles of state policy, as enshrined under the Constitution.
The court had in April last year ordered setting up of a panel to frame comprehensive guidelines to help end the abuse of public ads for political mileage.
Advocating strict regulation of expenditure and content of advertisements in the media by governments and politicians, a Supreme Court panel had in October recommended a slew of measures to “keep politics away” from such ads to check “misuse and abuse” of public money.
The court-appointed high-powered committee stated that only pictures and names of the President, Prime Minister, Governors and Chief Ministers should be published in government advertisements without mentioning or using names and pictures of political parties and their office bearers.
Headed by eminent academician Professor N R Madhava Menon, the three-member panel suggested ways to prevent splurge of the public fund. The panel said expenditure on public advertisements should be declared by each ministry and public sector undertaking and that it should be audited by the CAG.
The report suggested there be an implementation committee, headed by either an ombudsman or Cabinet Secretary or Secretary Information and Broadcasting Ministry, to maintain a distinction between legitimate message of government from that of political message till a law is enacted.
It said government advertisements should not be used to the advantage of the ruling party and for assailing the opposition. It also endorsed a suggestion by the Election Commission that there must be severe restrictions on such advertisements six months prior to elections.
The committee, comprising T K Viswanathan, former Secretary General of
Lok Sabhaand Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, recommended that there should only be a single advertisement, preferably by the I&B Ministry, in respect of commemorative advertisements that are published on birth and death anniversaries of important personalities.
The committee prepared its guidelines after consulting provisions of various countries and meeting all state governments and political parties.
Based on these recommendations, the SC has now issued “substantive guidelines” to be followed by the central and state governments and their agencies such as the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) and information departments in states.
Earlier, the court had rejected the Centre’s opposition to directions being issued in view of the existence of regulatory agencies such as DAVP, the bench noted that “the existing DAVP policy/ guidelines do not govern the issues raised in these writ petitions and do not lay down any criteria for the advertisements to qualify for ‘public purpose’ as opposed to partisan ends and political mileage”.
The bench had underlined that there was a need for substantive guidelines to be issued by the court until the legislature enacts a law on the subject, which the bench said was “sensational and significant”.
The bench was hearing PILs by NGOs Common Cause and CPIL. The NGOs, through their counsel Meera Bhatia and Prashant Bhushan, had highlighted numerous full-page advertisements in newspapers and repeated ads on TV by the central and state governments and their agencies, which projected political personalities and proclaimed the achievements of the ruling party at the expense of the public exchequer.
The ad campaigns cited by the NGOs included the ‘India shining’ campaign of the NDA government trumpeting its achievements and the media campaign of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on completion of her terms in office.
The Centre said that public ads were a must for disseminating information regarding government programmes and initiatives and that DAVP guidelines were good enough to deal with the issue. The court had agreed with the Centre that such ads were a mode of the communication with the people by the government but pointed out various advertisements that did not disclose any information but only glorified a particular government.
“While the boundary lines can blur, we need to distinguish between the advertisements that are part of government messaging and daily business and advertisements that are politically motivated. It is yet further pleaded that even the Election Commission of India though had expressed concern but could not do anything owing to lack of jurisdiction in the matter,” it noted.
The court had noted that several countries such as Australia and Canada developed guidelines to prevent abuse of public money by way of such advertisements and mandated the committee to study these to come up with the best possible set of guidelines in the Indian scenario.
