Political advertisement on autos: High Court reserves judgement

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today reserved its judgement on a plea seeking quashing of the city government's guideline banning " political advertisements" on public service vehicles even as it said that "as one political party got benefit out of it, so you want to ban it".

"We cannot diminish the right of freedom of speech," a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Vibhu Bakhru said, adding "since you are not doing it, we will do it on merits".

"Just one political party got benefit out of it. It means you want to ban it forever. There can't be any pre-censorship of public advertisements," the court said.

"Argument is heard. the judgement is reserved," it said. The court said it will decide particularly three issues in its judgement -- whether political advertisement should be allowed on public service vehicles, their pre-censorship, and on the issue that advertisement will be allowed only for vehicles having GPS and GPRS systems.

The court reserved its order after the counsel for Delhi government and an autorickshaw union concluded their arguments.

Delhi government's standing counsel Zubeda Begum told the court that it cannot remove the word "political" from its recent guidelines.

On August 1, Delhi government had placed its latest guidelines for display of advertisements on public service vehicles according to which any advertisement containing political, ethnic, religious or sectarian text will not be permitted.

It had specified that the vehicle-owner needed to obtain an approval from municipal authorities before displaying any political advertisements on public service vehicles.

"Advertisements cannot be displayed without approval from municipal bodies and are allowed only for vehicles having GPS/GPRS systems," the guidelines had said.