Supreme Court lifts curb on photos of chief ministers in ads

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday permitted the use of photographs of state governors, chief ministers and ministers both at central and state level in all government ads, acceding to the demand of elected leaders such as J Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal that a ban should be revoked.

The top court had in May 2015 permitted only the use of photos of the president, prime minister and the chief justice of India.

This had prompted the chief ministers to seek a relaxation in their case too as they had to face the electorate every five years and needed to publicise their work for the people.

A bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi and PC Pant reviewed the earlier decision and extended the use of photos. The order was made on a PIL seeking to check excessive spending on political ads by activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan.