The Hindu : Front Page : Supreme Court for making mudslinging ads 'electoral offence'

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Tuesday, Apr 06, 2004

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Supreme Court for making mudslinging ads 'electoral offence'

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. The Supreme Court today indicated that it would consider making the telecast of advertisements indulging in "mudslinging" and "personal attack" in the electronic media and cable television networks an "electoral offence."

A three-judge Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, V.N. Khare, Justice S. B. Sinha and Justice S.H. Kapadia, gave time to the Election Commission till Thursday to frame broad guidelines on how to enforce the ban on surrogate political advertisements on television channels and cable networks.

The Bench, during the course of hearing on an appeal filed by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry against an interim order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court suspending Rule 7 (3) of the Cable Television Network Rules, said: "If there is political mudslinging, we will make it an electoral offence under the Representation of the People Act."

All-party meet today

The Election Commission has convened an all-party meeting here tomorrow to discuss the issue of "personal attacks" in the election campaign and advertisements by political parties and candidates. It would also take up the controversial question of banning exit and opinion polls between the first and last phase of elections.

Since the Supreme Court has restrained the Commission from implementing its September 1999 guidelines to control the publication and telecast of opinion and exit poll surveys, the Commission is expected to seek clarification in this regard if there is a consensus to do so.

Appearing for the Commission, senior counsel K.K. Venugopal submitted before the Bench headed by the Chief Justice that implementing the ban on political advertisements on television channels was a huge task considering that there were 53 private news channels and an equal number of other private channels, 33,000 cable operators, six national parties, 45 registered and recognised regional parties and 702 registered but unrecognised political parties. He said that over 5,000 candidates would contest the elections to the Lok Sabha (543 seats) and four State Assemblies. Monitoring all the channels and candidates would be a difficult task and the Commission needed more time to give its response to the court's direction issued on April 2.

The Bench told counsel that "your (Commission) position is vital to the proper holding of elections. We want fair play and not slanderous remarks by one party against the other or leader of a party. We do not want any dirt or dust on electronic media. We can even give you pre-censorship powers and ask the Centre to provide you men and machinery and all possible assistance in the enforcement of the guidelines."

The Solicitor-General, Kirit Raval, appearing for the Union Government said everyone had welcomed the Supreme Court's April 2 order as "they want the elections to be clean and there is a perceptible change in the advertisements being telecast from yesterday."

Mr. Venugopal submitted that there were laws in many countries, including Germany, Norway and Switzerland, banning political advertisements in the electronic media and the courts of those countries had upheld them.

Senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for Gemini TV, one of the petitioners before the Andhra Pradesh High Court which allowed the telecast of political advertisements by staying Rule 7(3) of Cable TV Network Rules, 1994, said that none of these countries had a complete ban on political advertisements. He said that a candidate in Austria described another candidate that "he will be worse than Adolf Hitler" and the Austrian court upheld this. The Chief Justice intervened and said: "We don't subscribe to that view."

Mr. Venugopal submitted that the main object of the rules was to bring in fair play as the prohibitive cost of advertising in the electronic media would lead to disparity between the rich and the poor political parties. The Bench agreed.

When the Bench wanted to know from Mr. Venugopal the Commission's views on including the cost of advertisements in the candidate's election expenditure, Mr. Raval intervened and said that it was not the intention of the Government to bring in this aspect in its appeal. He said: "This question has got very wide ramification and cannot be done in this manner."

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