SC grants week's time for response to govt's new ads policy

New Delhi, Feb 26 (UNI) The counsel for the petitioner in a PIL seeking a ban on government advertisements glorifying political leaders today told the Supreme Court that there was nothing new in the government's new advertisement policy.

Mr D K Garg told a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran that the new policy, a copy of which was supplied to him the day before yesterday contained nothing new and was only a clever reiteration of its old policy, which permitted the glorification of political leaders at the expense of the state exchequer.

The petitioner, Manzoor Ali Khan, in his PIL had contended that crores of rupees were being spent from public funds for political advertisements aimed at glorifying the leaders of parties in power.

The petitioner has also alleged that government agencies were being misused and the political party concerned should bear the expenses of the cost of such political advertisements and the goverment should not spend even a single paisa for such political advertisements, which are part of the political campaianing by these parties whose sole concern is vote bank politics.

The Supreme Court has granted one week's time to the petitioner to file his response to the government's new advertisement policy which according to the government has rationalised the process of spending government money on advertisements.

UNI