HC dismisses plea against advertisements

The Madras High Court today dismissed a plea seeking to direct AIADMK to pay the entire expenses incurred by the government for advertisements in the wake of a Supreme Court judgement formulating guidelines in respect of advertisements by government in newspapers.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T S Sivagnanam, dismissed a plea in this regard by P Rathinam, an advocate.
The Supreme Court had on May 13 issued a slew of guidelines on regulation of public advertisements.
While refuting the charges of Rathinam that mentioning the prefix "purathci thalavi" (revolutionary leader) before Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's name in advertisements is violation of the apex court order, the judges said "it is a prefix as a laudatory reference to the chief minister and we cannot call this as violation of the guidelines."

"In the absence of any cogent materials, we find no ground to exercise jurisdiction in this petition", they said.
Referring to two advertisements where a reference was made to certain schemes of government stating "under the dynamic leadership of Selvi J Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister" and another one mentioning "Amma's rule forever", the judges said the advertisements were published on May 26 and the judgement of the Supreme Court was delivered on May 13.
"The advertisement is just 13 days after the judgement. It will take some time to appreciate the contents of the judgement and implement it in its true spirit.