Week's time to respond to govt's new ads policy

New Delhi, Feb 26: The counsel for the petitioner in a PIL seekinga ban on government advertisements glorifying political leaders todaytold the Supreme Court that there was nothing new in the government'snew advertisement policy.

Mr D K Garg told a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnanand Justice R V Raveendran that the new policy, a copy of which wassupplied to him the day before yesterday contained nothing new and wasonly a clever reiteration of its old policy, which permitted theglorification of political leaders at the expense of the stateexchequer.

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

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

The Supreme Court has granted one week's time to the petitioner tofile his response to the government's new advertisement policy whichaccording to the government has rationalised the process of spendinggovernment money on advertisements.

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