Photo ban has blanket reach

R, Balaji, TT, New Delhi, May 17: The Supreme Court ban on the use of photographs of chief ministers, other ministers and governors in government ads covers not just newspapers, magazines and television but also the Internet, movie theatres and public hoardings.

Chief ministers can therefore not smile down from government billboards at street crossings, nor can cinemas screen documentaries or newsreel featuring such dignitaries while plugging development projects.

In the May 13 order, the two-judge bench made an exception only for the President, Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India, leaving it to them to decide their own cases.

The judgment defines "government advertising" thus:

"Any message conveyed and paid for by the government for placement in media such as newspapers, television, the radio, Internet and cinemas but (which) does not include classified advertisements."

It adds: "It includes both copy (written text or audio) and creatives (visuals/video/multi-media) put out in print, electronic, outdoor or digital media."

"Outdoor media" covers billboards as well as signage on walls, bus benches and the outsides and insides of buses and Metro trains.

Conscious that the judgment may be seen as judicial overreach - several political parties have indeed voiced protest - the bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Pinaki Chandra Ghose had made a few clarifications.

"The deployment of public funds in any government activity which is not connected with a public purpose would justify judicial intervention," the bench said.

It acknowledged that courts can neither "axe" a government policy for allegedly running counter to Part IV of the Constitution, known as the directive principles of state policy, nor use its provisions to "charter a course" whose "effect... would be to lay down a policy".

The directive principles are guidelines for the executive, legislature and judiciary.

However, it added, "in a situation where the field is open and uncovered by any government policy, to guide and control everyday governmental action, surely, in the exercise of jurisdiction under Article 142 (extraordinary powers of the Supreme Court) of the Constitution, parameters can be laid down by this court...."

It clarified that "such an exercise would be naturally time-bound", applying only till the legislature or the executive stepped in and framed "an appropriate policy".

The judgment came on the recommendations of a court-appointed committee, whose members were N.R. Madhava Menon, former director of the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal; T.K. Viswanathan, former secretary-general of the Lok Sabha; and Ranjit Kumar, counsel for the two petitioning NGOs, Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation.