New Delhi: Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Saturday claimed the AAP government has "not violated" any guideline of the Supreme Court on advertisements while he accused the BJP-led MCDs of spending money meant for dengue and chikungunya awareness on "self-glorification".
A three-member panel, constituted by the Centre, on Friday indicted the city government for splurging on advertisements for promoting Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP in violation of the apex court guidelines and asked the ruling party to reimburse it.
"The Delhi government has not given advertisements for glorifying its image. The government has not disobeyed any guideline of Supreme Court," Jain said.
Read: Cong demands recovery of Rs 854 crore from AAP over advertisement spending
The three-member committee, headed by former Chief Election Commissioner B B Tandon, had been constituted by the I&B ministry on directions of Supreme Court to address issues related to Content Regulation in government advertising.
Hitting out at the three municipal corporations on their advertisment spendings, the Minister alleged the civic bodies have put up hoardings having images of mayors and councillors at several places across Delhi but nobody objects to as these hoardings belong to BJP leaders.
"They (MCD) are spending public money for glorifying its image. The money meant for awareness on dengue and chikungunya has been spent on self-glorification," the city Home Minister said.
The Central-government committee had received a complaint from Congress leader Ajay Maken who had accused the AAP government of splurging public money on advertisements.
In its order issued on Friday, the Committee came to the conclusion that "the government of NCT of Delhi has violated guidelines issued by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in six of the nine areas listed by the complainant".
The violations include "outstation advertisements, false/ misleading advertisements, advertisements for self-glorification and to target political opponents, advertisements against media, advertisements mentioning the party in power by name and also advertisements issued on incidents occurring in other states."
