Delhi High Court to hear plea against AAP government's latest ad campaign on July 20

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court would hear a plea against the AAP government for allegedly violating Supreme Court guidelines by bringing out advertisements "glorifying" Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday.

Justice V P Vaish said he needed to hear the issue properly, so that he could pass a detailed order on the plea filed by NGO Nyayaa Path, which also sought direction to the city government to immediately withdraw a recent television advertisement and "restrain itself from such type of image building exercise of Arvind Kejriwal".

"Re-notify the matter for further hearing on July 20," the court said.

The Kejriwal government had on July 12 come out with an advertisement with tagline 'Wo pareshaan karte rahein, hum kaam karte rahein' (they trouble us, but we continue to work).

Referring to the recent advertisement published from Mumbai, the petitioner sought direction to the Centre, Lt Governor and Delhi Government that its cost be recovered from Kejriwal, who was being glorified by it.

Senior advocate Chetan Sharma, appearing for the NGO, took objection to the tagline of the advertisement and asked what does "Wo" (they) mean.

"Is 'Wo' referring to the judiciary because some of their leaders are behind bars or does it refer to the opposition or the media, just because the media has now given them a cold shoulder. Now they are using tax payers' money in issuing advertisements.

"Their campaign is like what Hitler had done. It's like feed a hundred lies to the public and it will become the truth. Why are the advertisements appearing in the newspapers of Mumbai highlighting the issues of Delhi. Is it because they want to expand political campaign for upcoming elections on tax-payers' money, which is meant for the people of Delhi," Sharma contended.