Supreme Court notice to Centre, BJP, six states on violation of public advertisement guidelines

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has issued notices to the Centre, BJP and five states it govern, apart from Telangana, over an AAP MLA’s allegations that they were misusing public money to issue political advertisements ahead of the 2019 polls.

A bench led by justice Ranjan Gogoi sought formal explanation from the eight in four weeks on a petition by Sanjeev Jha, legislator representing Sant Nagar, Burari.

The BJP states issued notices were UP, Jharkhand, MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The last three go to the polls in less than three months.


The petitioner alleged the ruling BJP was indulging in blatant propaganda to further its cause and blatantly violated the court’s order which refrained governments from spending public money for political ads.

The SC’s 2015 directive was meant to retain a level-playing field between political parties. It had also directed the Centre to set up a high-level committee to scrutinise complaints and act against erring parties. The petitioner alleged that the committee failed to take action against the errant and demanded that the respective governments be asked to furnish accounts of money spent for political purposes and made to reimburse to the state exchequer.

“The committee has, since its inception in 2016, been practically defunct and has dealt with one singular case pertaining to alleged violations by the AAP,” the petitioner contended.

The Centre set up a committee comprising former ASG Ranjit Kumar, NR Madhav Menon and TK Vishwanathan after the top court had on May 13, 2015, directed it to constitute a three-member committee “consisting of persons with unimpeachable neutrality and impartiality” to regulate public advertisements.

The court modified its order of allowing only the photos of the President and PM, almost a year later, to allow use of photos of Union ministers, chief ministers, governors and state ministers too in government ads.