Plea to restrain govt from using Jayalalithaa's photos in advertisements
Chennai: A public interest litigation has been filed in the Madras high court to direct the state government not to use the photographs of former Chief Minister late J.Jayalalithaa in government of Tamil Nadu advertisements in any media by misusing the public funds since she has been pronounced as accused in a criminal case.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M.Sundar, before whom the PIL filed by social activist Traffic Ramaswamy came up for hearing, directed authorities to file counter affidavit within 3 weeks and rejoinder if any, within two weeks thereafter and posted to August 28, further hearing of the case.
According to Ramaswamy, the present government has been issuing advertisements regarding the government schemes and other achievements in daily newspapers with the photograph of former Chief Minister late J.Jayalalithaa. The AIADMK party members can have her photo or they can post her photo published by spending their own funds. Similarly, the government officers also can use her photo out of their own funds personally as she was the Chief Minister But, they cannot do it by misusing the public funds, he added.
He said the Supreme Court has given its judgment and in that judgment it clearly stated that former Chief Minister Jayalalaithaa was an accused in a criminal case. In India, no government was using the accused photo for government schemes and achievements by spending the public fund. The government officials very well knew about the same but they were forced to do it by some politicians.
The government openly and willfully was giving advertisements with the accused photo by spending public money in newspapers. It was a wrong signal as the successive government may also follow the same in future by spending public fund. Therefore, it should be nipped at the beginning stage itself, he added.
Plea against Edappadi dismissed
The Madras high court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation, which sought a direction to the offices of the President of India and Governor of Tamil Nadu to take necessary action and inquire into the alleged charges of corruption against Chief Minister Edappadi K.Palaniswami and his group and also to suspend the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly for the activities of the Chief Minister and Speaker of the Assembly.
Dismissing the PIL filed by social activist Traffic Ramaswamy, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M.Sundar said, “the alleged corruption charges against the Chief Minister is devoid of material particulars and the source of such information is not clear”.
Rejecting the contention of the petitioner that the ruling party MLAs including Ministers has put up an illuminated photograph of a convicted senior politician (late J.Jayalalithaa) in front of the dashboard of their vehicle with pride and arrive at the state assembly hall is by itself is a serious offence, the bench said the petitioner has not adverted to any provision of law, which prevents a Member of the Legislative Assembly from putting up an illuminated photograph of a leader. “It is not for this court to decide whether illuminated photograph of person convicted by a court of law should be put up”, the bench added.
Referring to the allegation of the petitioner that Chief Minister Edappadi K.Palaniswami and his group promised money ranging from Rs 2 to 6 crore to MLAs for supporting the government, when the MLAs got into the bus to go to Koovathur resort, the bench said the source of the information was not revealed by the petitioner. Petitioner was not an MLA and he was obviously not in the bus, the bench added.
Rejecting another allegation that several bills were passed in the assembly after evicting the MLAs belonging to the opposition party, without any debate, the bench said it was nobody’s case that bills were not passed by the majority of the members.
