Mudslinging not acceptable: SC

Poll panel asked to formulate norms in 3 days to ban slanderous ads

Deploring political mudslinging as undemocratic, the Supreme Court today warned that it would consider making slanderous advertisements an "electoral offence".

This observation came from a Bench comprising Chief Justice VN Khare, Justice SB Sinha and Justice SH Kapadia, which gave three days to the Election Commission to frame a broad guideline to stop all sorts of surrogate political advertisements on television channels and cable networks.

The Bench, during the hearing on an appeal filed by the information and broadcasting ministry, observed that "if there is political mudslinging, we will make it an electoral offence under the Representation of People Act."

This has got serious ramifications as anybody found guilty of committing an electoral offence will be disqualified even after getting elected from a constituency.

Senior advocate KK Venugopal, appearing for the poll panel, presented the huge task before the commission saying there were 83 private channels, 33,000 cable operators, six national parties, 45 regional ones and 702 registered political parties and desired the "commission be given time till Thursday to work out a broad guideline".

Acceding to the poll panel's request, the Bench observed that "your position is vital to the proper holding of elections". Solicitor-General Kiriti Raval, appearing for the Union government, said everyone welcomed the apex court's April 2 order as they "want the elections to be clean".

The Bench said: "We want fair play and not slanderous remarks by one party against the other or leader of a party against other. This is not democracy."

Appreciating the massive task at the hands of the poll panel, the apex court said all possible assistance would be rendered by the Centre and asked the solicitor-general to be part of the process for formulation of the guidelines.

However, the apex court made its resolve clear not to allow political mudslinging during the elections saying, "we do not want any dirt or dust on electronic media."

Venugopal submitted that laws banning political advertisements were in force in several countries including Germany, Norway and Switzerland and these have been upheld by the apex courts of those countries.

Appearing for Gemini TV, on whose petition the Andhra Pradesh High Court had allowed telecast of political advertisements by staying rule 7(3) of the Cable TV Network Act, 1994, senior advocate Harish Salve said none of these countries had a complete ban on political advertisements.

Venugopal said the main object of the rules was to bring in fair play as the prohibitive cost of advertising on electronic media would lead to disparity between the rich and poor political parties. The Bench agreed and said, "you are right. It is so expensive".

When the Bench took up the question of whether or not to include cost of advertisements in the election account of the candidates, Raval said it was not the intention of the government to bring in this aspect in its appeal.

"This question has got very wide ramification and cannot be done in this manner," he said. Seeing reason in the submission, the Bench posted the hearing till Monday only on the issue of framing guidelines on advertisements.

To stop "mudslinging" by parties during the elections, the court on Friday banned telecast of all political advertisements which offend the "morality, decency and religious susceptibility" of viewers and asked the Election Commission to monitor the ads on television.

Substituting an Andhra Pradesh High Court order allowing airing of political advertisements, the Bench, headed by Chief Justice Khare, had accepted submissions of Attorney-General Soli J Sorabjee in putting in force a ban on "political mudslinging" through surrogate advertisements.

Observing that "we are in the midst of watching a great cricket series and we do not want it to be substituted by political mudslinging," the Bench also cautioned the cable networks and television channels not to air any political advertisement that was "shocking, disgusting and revolting".

In an interesting twist, the court had also sought the response of the Election Commission by Monday on the question whether the money spent on advertisements by a candidate for the election could be included in his election expenses, which has been limited to Rs 25 lakh per Lok Sabha constituency and Rs 10 lakh for Assembly seats.