The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice on a plea to initiate contempt action against the Delhi and Tamil Nadu governments for allegedly defying an apex court judgment barring the publication of Chief Ministers’ photographs in government advertisements.
The petition was filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan.
The notice came after a day-long hearing, which saw the T.N. government and the Centre join forces to challenge the logic in barring photographs of CMs from government advertisements in a judgment dated May 13, 2015.
The court had said government ads should feature only the photographs of President, Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India, that too, if they wish so.
It had reasoned that publication of photographs of politicians and government functionaries, including CMs, defeated the public interest behind advertising welfare schemes and encouraged “personality cults.”
Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for both the Centre and Tamil Nadu, argued that Chief Ministers are as important a constitutional authority as the Prime Minister in a federal democracy.
A Bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who authored the May 13 verdict, gave the States six weeks to respond. States, including Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, are seeking a review of the judgment.
Turning on its head the judgment’s reasoning that photographs of politicians on government advertisements will lead to “personality cults”, Mr. Rohatgi said advertisements featuring the photos of one personality alone, like the Prime Minister, is more likely to give birth to personality cults and is “pernicious.” “There is no difference between a Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers or Chief Ministers in a federal structure. There is no basis for you saying that these three [PM, President and CJI] alone are exempted. There is no intrinsic difference between one minister or the other” Mr. Rohatgi submitted. He argued that a picture has a far more visual impact than “cold-blooded written words.”
“The idea of ‘information’ under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution includes not only the written word but also pictures,” Mr. Rohatgi said.
“Advertising campaigns for polio, health policies, cultural events need faces so that people will be attracted to look at them. This court should not have got into the sanctity of it [using photos in advertisements], but having done so, how can this court say only these three are exempted?” Mr. Rohatgi argued. The A-G said the Supreme Court should be open to correct its own errors. The Bench has reserved the case for final orders.