Common Cause welcomes SC verdict on govt. ads

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By IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, 13 May 2015: The Common Cause welcomed the landmark Supreme Court judgment setting guidelines for publicly funded government advertisements “misused ostensibly to promote political leaders and parties in power.”

The apex court bench comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice P C Ghose, in its judgment today, prohibited the use of photographs of ministers and other political leaders in government advertisements with the exception of the President of India, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India.

Dr Vipul Mudgal, Director, Common Cause, said in a statement that the judgment will be an important step in the direction of building accountability in the expenditure of the tax payers’ money. He said the provision of three-member ombudsman to oversee the release of government advertisement is an idea whose time has come and which has the potential to emerge as an institution in its own right like the Election Commission of India.

Mudgal said the landmark judgment is a tribute to the organisation’s founder Mr H D Shourie under whose guidance the writ petition was filed in 2003 in the midst of a media blitzkrieg of political advertising better remembered as “India Shining” campaign. “However, it must be added that all political parties in power, either at the centre or in the states, have been misusing public money for promoting their leaders’ image, particularly during or before the elections,” said Mudgal adding that it is indeed worrisome that political leaders and parties are building and marketing their ‘brands’ at the expense of the ordinary people.

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