The Delhi Government’s Directorate of Information & Publicity (DIP) has issued a notice to the ruling AAP for the recovery of `163.62 crore spent on advertisements allegedly in violation of the Supreme Court guidelines issued in 2015. The recovery notice also includes the interest on the amount and makes it mandatory for the ruling party to pay the whole amount within 10 days.
The notice relates to money spent on advertisements mostly published outside Delhi. The development comes nearly a month after Delhi Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) VK Saxena directed Chief Secretary to recover `97 crore from the AAP for political advertisements it published allegedly in the guise of Government advertisements. The Supreme Court-appointed committee, comprising BB Tandon, former CEC, TK Vishwanathan, former Secretary Law (GoI) and former Secretary-General, Lok Sabha and Madhav Menon, founder NLSU, found the advertisements to be violating the guidelines, and ordered for recovery to be made for them from AAP.
According to records, out of `106.42 crore, payment of `99.31 crore has already been made to the concerned agencies by DIP and `7.11 crore (approximately) is outstanding.
The notice from DIP reads, “In view of the above, you are requested to reimburse `99,31,10,053 to the State Exchequer immediately and `7.11 crore (approximately) for the remaining advertisements whose payment has not been released so far by the Government, should be paid directly to the agencies concerned in 10 days from the date of issue of this notice."
"If the AAP convener fails to do so, all consequential legal action including attachment of the properties of the party shall be taken in a time-bound manner, as per the earlier order of the Delhi L-G," sources said.
While `99.31 crore is on account of principal amount incurred on political advertisements till March 31, 2017, the remaining `64.31 crore is on account of penal interest on this amount. The Delhi Government's Directorate of Audit has also deputed a special audit team for conducting an audit of all such political advertisements after March 31, 2017, the sources said.