The Madras High Court today directed the Tamil Nadu government to frame guidelines within three months for releasing advertisements to newspapers on the basis of circulation and other criteria without any discrimination.
Justice M Duraiswamy passed the order on petitions filed by Tamil daily 'Dinamalar' and Kal Publications Private Limited, which publishes 'Dinakaran' and 'Tamil Murasu' dailies.
The petitioners had moved the court contending that the government was discriminating against them by not giving advertisements.
They had sought a direction to the state government to continue giving advertisements to their newspapers and re-fix the rate.
They also wanted framing of guidelines for releasing advertisement to newspapers on the basis of their circulation without any discrimination.
Representing 'Dinamalar', its Editor R Krishnamurthy submitted though the daily was a leading one with a circulation of nine lakh copies, the state government had excluded it while releasing advertisements to various other dailies "indiscriminately".
Rejecting the contention, the state government said so far as 'Dinamalar' was concerned, advertisements amounting to Rs 3.51 crore were released to it during June-November, 2016.
In the case of 'Dinakaran' and 'Tamil Murasu', the judge observed they did not get even a single advertisement after 2011.
When the authorities were not in a position to explain the reasons for not releasing any advertisement, it clearly amounted to discrimination, he said.
The judge said there has to be some proper policy to be followed by the government while issuing advertisements.
"The result of lack of proper policy would be that some newspapers, which report activities of the state government in a favourable manner, would enjoy state patronage and other newspapers, which are reporting the news in an impartial and unbiased manner, may not enjoy such state patronage," he said.
This would amount to hostile discrimination against a particular newspaper, the judge added.
He further said the discriminatory allotment of government advertisements to different newspapers of the same category by the state government will impair the freedom of press and, therefore, be violative of Articles 14 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
The judge directed the government to continue giving advertisements to 'Dinakaran' and 'Tamil Murasu' and also re-fix the rates of advertisements based on the Audit Bureau of Circulations certificate with immediate effect.
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