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Tag: T K Vishwanathan

  • Karunanidhi opposes SC rule against ban of politicians’ pictures in govt ads

    Karunanidhi opposes SC rule against ban of politicians’ pictures in govt ads

    NEW DELHI: DMK chief and former Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi has lashed out at the Supreme Court’s ban on the photos of politicians in government ads.

     

    The veteran politician has said that this takes away the rights of the states.

     

    He was quoted in media reports as saying, “The PM and CMs are of same status in a federal set-up. In states, people give more importance to the CMs than the PM. A picture of a CM is inevitable in state govt advertisements. There are few educated people. The pictures help people understand ads better.”

     

    Holding that taxpayers’ money cannot be spent to build “personality cults” of political leaders, the Supreme Court restrained ruling parties from publishing photographs of political leaders or prominent persons in government-funded advertisements.

     

    The Court said such photos divert attention from the policies of the government, unnecessarily associate an individual with a government project, and pave the way for cultivating a “personality cult.”

     

    A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N.V. Ramana said the photos of only three constitutional authorities – the Prime Minister, the President and the Chief Justice of India – can be used in such ads. However, the personal approval of these three authorities will be necessary before publication.

     

    The observations of the Court were based on examination of the findings of a Committee led by Bangalore’s National Law University Director N.S. Madhava Menon set up in May last year, which had submitted its report in October. The Committee was set up by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry pursuant to an order of 23 April last year. Other members were former Lok Sabha secretary general T K Vishwanathan, and senior advocate Ranjit Kumar. Bimal Julka, secretary in the I&B Ministry, was the member secretary of the Committee.

     

    The court passed the order on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the NGOs Common Cause represented by counsel Meera Bhatia and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan pleading it to frame guidelines.

     

    The petitions sought issuance of guidelines for curbing ruling parties from taking political mileage by projecting their leaders in official advertisements.

     

    The Menon panel had recommended a complete ban on publishing of photos in the ads. It had further said that no ads should be allowed on election eve.

     

    However, Justice Gogoi made changes in four cases. Instead of a complete ban on publishing of photos of all individuals, it said pictures of PM, President and CJI can be used provided they personally clear it – thus, in a way, making them also accountable for the publication.

     

    Secondly, the court improvised on the Menon committee recommendations to direct the government to appoint a three-member Ombudsman body of persons with “unimpeachable integrity.”

     

    The bench disagreed with the panel’s suggestion for a performance audit on such government ads.

     

    Holding that there had been “misuse and abuse” of public money on such advertisements, the three-member committee headed by eminent academician Professor Menon had framed guidelines to regulate expenditure and contents of such ads.

     

    The report had said only pictures and names of the President, the Prime Minister, Governor and Chief Ministers be published.

     

    The apex court bench had then said that the existing guidelines of the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) do not cover such ads. There was therefore a need for substantive guidelines to be issued by the Court until the legislature enacts a law in this regard.

     

    The three members of the committee recommended that the governments must prepare a list of personalities whose birth or death anniversaries will be marked with ads in advance.

     

    The government must then specify which Ministry should release the ad to avoid different departments and state-run companies from paying tribute to the same leader with a multitude of ads. “There should be a single advertisement only,” the Committee said.

     

    The committee said that its recommendations are to prevent “the arbitrary use of public funds for advertising… to project particular personalities, parties or governments without any attendant public interest.”

     

    As was reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, the move is likely to impact the revenues of some media groups as television channels will no longer be able to run TVCs by state governments featuring Chief Ministers and other local political leaders.

  • Supreme Court sets panel on government advertisements

    Supreme Court sets panel on government advertisements

    NEW DELHI: Pursuant to the Supreme Court order for forming panel to frame guidelines to regulate publicly funded government advertisements, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has formally notified the names of Bangalore’s National Law University director Prof NR Madhav Menon, former Lok Sabha secretary general T K Vishwanathan and senior advocate Ranjit Kumar.

     

    I&B Ministry secretary Bimal Julka will be the member secretary of the committee, which held its first meeting on 5 May.

     

     The Ministry said the report will be given preferably within three months of the date of the judgment, 23 April, by the panel after an intricate study of all the best practices in public advertisements in different jurisdictions.

     

     The apex court bench headed by chief justice P Sathasivam with justice Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana had said that the existing guidelines of the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) do not cover such advertisements. There was therefore a need for substantive guidelines to be issued by the Court until the legislature enacts a law in this regard.

     

     The court passed the order on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the NGOs Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) pleading it to frame guidelines. The petition sought issuance of guidelines for curbing ruling parties from taking political mileage by projecting their leaders in official advertisements.

     

     It was, the Court said, ‘vividly clear’ that the DAVP guidelines, which are available in the public domain, only deal with the eligibility and empanelment of the newspapers/journals or other media, their rates of payment, and such like matters. Besides, it only specifies that in releasing advertisement to newspapers/journals, the DAVP would not take into account the political affiliation or editorial policies of newspapers/journals.

     

     “Hence, it is evident that there is no policy or guideline to regulate the content of government advertisements and to exclude the possibility of any mala fide use or misuse of public funds on advertisements in order to gain political mileage by the political establishment.”

     

    The Government in its counter affidavit claimed that 60 per cent of the advertisements released by the DAVP on behalf of various Ministries/Departments/Public Sector Undertakings of the Central Government relate to classified or display/classified category such as UPSC/SSC or recruitment, tender and public notices, etc. The respondents asserted that government advertisements sometime carry messages from national leaders, ministers and dignitaries accompanied with their photographs.

     

    However, government counsel K Radhakrishnan said the purpose of such advertisements is not to give personal publicity to the leaders or to the political parties they belong to rather the objective is to let the people know and have authentic information about the progress of the programmes/performance of the government they elected and form informed opinions, which is one of the fundamental rights of the citizens in our democracy as enshrined in the Constitution.

     

    The apex court noted in its judgment that the immediate cause of filing these writ petitions in 2003 and 2004 respectively was stated to be the numerous full page advertisements in the print media and repeated advertisements in the electronic media by the Central Government, State Governments and its agencies, instrumentalities including public sector undertakings which project political personalities and proclaim the achievements of particular political governments and parties at the expense of the public exchequer.

     

    It was also the assertion of the petitioners – Common Cause represented by Meera Bhatia and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by Prashant Bhushan – that such advertisements become more blatant and assumes alarming proportions just before the announcement of the general elections. Accordingly, it was the stand of the petitioners that such deliberate misuse of public funds by the Central Government, State Governments, their departments and instrumentalities of the state is destructive to the rule of law.

     

    It was also alleged that it allows the parties in power to patronize publications and media organizations affiliated to the parties in power and also to get favourable media coverage by selective dispersal of the advertising bonanza. It was projected that the use of public funds for advertising by public authorities to project particular personalities, parties or governments without any attendant public interest is mala fide and arbitrary and amounted to violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. It was also argued that use and wastage of public funds in political motivated advertisements designed to project particular personality, party or government by wasting public money is also in violation of the fundamental rights under Article 21 because of diversion of resources by the governments for partisan interests. Such violation, therefore, attracts the remedy under Article 32 for the enforcement of fundamental rights of the citizens.