PIL in HC to recover money spent on AAP ads

NEW DELHI: A former dean of Delhi University’s law faculty has moved the Delhi high court accusing the Arvind Kejriwal government of wasting Rs 530 crore for “self propagation” to the detriment of the general public.
In a PIL filed on Friday, which is likely to be taken up next week, Dr S N Singh, ex-dean and head of DU’s law department has sought the court’s intervention to recover the money allegedly wasted by the state government and its officials.
The PIL also wants HC to issue direction to the government to spend money only for purposes approved through constitutional and legal procedure.
Singh has argued that after the government assumed office in February, it presented its first budget in June for the financial year 2015-16. However, no provision was made in this budget for advertising the so-called achievements of the government.
Claiming that the advertisements issued were “not only false, by way of self-praise, claiming that the Delhi government is working well but also tried to depict the central government in a very poor shape and also blamed the Prime Minister without any justification,” the PIL states. It further highlights that hoardings depicting the ads were put up across the city but were suddenly withdrawn on July 29.
“This kind of advertising without any budgetary allocation for making false and tall claims about the achievements of government at the cost of the general public is detrimental to public interest. Instead of providing basic amenities to the public like sanitation, water, shelter, proper roads, drainage system, education, the Delhi Government continues to spend huge money on these advertisements. The public interest is greatly affected by these wasteful expenses and there is an urgent need not only to stop these extravagant expenses but also recover the amounts already spent on these advertisements from the people responsible for them,” the PIL adds.
Last week, expressing concern over “blatant” violation of Supreme Court guidelines, a bench led by Chief Justice G Rohini had asked the AAP government to give details of the money spent on advertisements.
The court has also sought details from the government on advertisements issued by them in other states apart from the capital after the Supreme Court ruling that taxpayers’ money cannot be spent to build the image of political leaders.