High Court seeks details of money spent on advertisments by Delhi government

NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over "blatant" violation of the Supreme Court guidelines, Delhi High Court today asked AAP government to give details of the money spent on advertisements allegedly glorifying Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath also sought details from Delhi government on advertisements issued by them in other states apart from the national capital after the Supreme Court ruling that taxpayers' money cannot be spent to build the image of political leaders.

"Having regard to the fact that the said directions are operative and enforceable under...the Constitution and keeping in view the specific averments in the writ petition supported by material available on record with regard to the various advertisements issued by Respondent No.2 (Delhi government) through the print and electronic media in violation of the direction of the Supreme Court.

"Delhi government is directed to file its response by August 3, 2015, positively meeting all the allegations made in the petition. It shall also furnish the details of the amounts spent and the source of the expenditure for the government's advertisement by print and electronic media after May 13, 2015, judgement of the Supreme Court..." the court said, adding that the "act of the Delhi government is in contravention" of the apex court judgement.

"Whatever said in the Supreme Court judgement is binding upon the everyone," the court said, adding that "how you are spending money in other states like Chennai, Mumbai...".

The bench also asked the Delhi government's standing counsel Raman Duggal whether the money spent on the advertisements was from the party fund or public money.

To this, Duggal said the money spent on the advertisements were from party funds.

The matter has now been listed for further consideration on August 3.

The court's order came on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by senior Congress leader Ajay Maken, who sought immediate direction to restrain the "Delhi government from airing its recent audio visual TV advertisement and also its recent advertisement".