The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to constitute a three-member expert panel to frame guidelines to ensure that public funds were not wasted on glorification of political parties and leaders in the advertisements issued by departments and instrumentalities of the State and Central Governments.
The bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam directed the Information and Broadcasting Committee to facilitate the meeting of the Committee with I&B Secretary as its Member Secretary. The three members would be former Director of National Judicial Academy NR Madhava Menon, former lok Sabha Secretary General TK Vishwanathan, and senior advocate Ranjit Kumar.
The bench, also comprising of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and NV Ramana, said, "The Committee consisting of three members will undertake the task of suggesting guidelines to this Court after an intricate study of all best practices in public advertisements in different jurisdictions and to submit the same before this Court preferably within a period of the three months." The matter will be taken up after three months.
The Court issued orders on two separate PIls filed by NGOs Common Cause and Centre for Public Interest litigation which brought to the Court's attention the colossal loss of public money in the name of advertisements by States and Central Government.
The Court held that Governments do have a right to announce their decisions, programmes, schemes and initiatives by way of advertisements in print and electronic media. However, it took note of the petitioners' claim that such an exercise was seen to serve the interest of the political party heading the Government and its leaders, whose pictures and names figure in the advertisements in place of the Government functionaries.
"With the increasing awareness and emphasis on transparency in the governance of the country, the public senses the need to restrain the misuse of public funds for furthering the political motives," the bench said, adding that guidelines were needed to prevent misuse of public funds by such advertising. The PIls came to be filed around 2003 and 2004following the banner "India Shining" and "Bharat Nirman" advertisements issued by political parties, mainly around election time.