Delhi LG orders recovery of Rs 97 cr from AAP for publishing political advertisements as government ads
20 Dec 2022 16:59:05
New Delhi, Dec 20: After Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Vinai Kumar Saxena directed the Chief Secretary (CS) to recover Rs 97 crore from the AAP for allegedly publishing political advertisements as government advertisements.
Saxena has asked the CS to implement the recommendations of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA).
According to officials, former L-G Anil Baijal had raised similar objections, accusing the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of using the state exchequer to pay for the advertisements issued by the party in violation of the Supreme Court order. Following the orders of the apex court, the Centre formed a three-member committee in 2017 to regulate advertising content. Following this order, an advertisement issued by the Directorate of Information & Publicity (DIP) was investigated to find out how much money was spent on it by the AAP government. “In compliance with the said order dated 16.09.2016 of CCRGA, the DIP, ascertained and quantified that an amount of Rs 97,14,69,137/- had been spent/booked on account of non-conforming advertisements that violated the Supreme Court order. Of this, while payments amounting to Rs 42,26,81,265/- had already been released by DIP, Rs 54,87,87,872/- for advertisements published were still pending disbursal, said officials adding that accordingly, DIP, vide letter dated 30.03.2017, directed the Convener of AAP (Arvind Kejriwal) to pay Rs 42.26 crore to the State Exchequer immediately and directly pay the remaining amount to the concerned advertising agencies/publication within 30 days. It is emphasized that these payments were on account of advertisements published by the AAP Government in violation of Supreme Court’s guidelines,” Raj Niwas officials said. The L-G, in a letter, said despite the lapse of five years and eight months, the AAP has not complied with the order. “This is serious, as public money, despite specific order, has not been deposited by the party to the State Exchequer. Such defiance of a legitimate order by a registered political party is not only contemptuous of the judiciary, but also does not augur well for the health of good governance,” said officials. The L-G House said the Directorate of Vigilance (DoV) also conducted an inquiry and found that not only did the DIP not recover amounts worth Rs 42,26,81,265/-, it also proactively paid the pending amount of Rs 54,87,87,872/-, rather than getting the AAP to pay the same, as ordered, said officials. “In eight cases, payment of Rs 20.53 crore (approx) was made, falsely attributing it to Court / Arbitration orders. Further, Dy CM Manish Sisodia, who is the Minister-in-Charge of the Department as well as the Minister of Finance, approved payment of another Rs 27 crore (approx), by entering into a fraudulent “compromise deed/settlement”, despite the fact that there was no litigation nor there were any directions from Supreme Court / High Court of Delhi,” they said. It may be noted, as highlighted by the DoV, that in a glaring impropriety, 61 of the 90 suo motu/unilateral/compromise settlement deeds entered by the DIP have not been signed by the concerned officers/officials, and still payments were released, the report said. “It has also been brought out that such advertisements that are prima facie and blatantly violative of the Supreme Court order have been continuously issued by the DIP on the direction of the ministers. One such example of wasteful expenditure in violation of the Supreme Court order is the case of advertisements in the bio-decomposer project. While the entire cost for the bio-decomposer project was Rs 41.62 lakh, the expenditure incurred for advertising was Rs 16.94 crore, which is 40 times higher than the project cost,” said the L-G.
Officials with the L-G’s House said, “All this was done by the AAP and its ministers by resorting to grossly illegal moves which entailed putting in place a Committee of its own to look into violations of the Supreme Court guidelines. This in itself was illegal, since the Committee appointed by the GoI (Government of India) as per orders of the Supreme Court, was authorized and empowered with jurisdiction over all GoI advertisements as well as those issued by the Union Territories, that includes Delhi.” The same was pointed out by the then L-G, who dismissed the Committee constituted by the Kejriwal Government. The stance was also reiterated and condoned by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and the Ministry of Home Affairs, GoI. The L-G has further directed chief secretary Naresh Kumar to look into all advertisements since September 2016, and that they are referred to the CCRGA for vetting and ascertaining if they are in consonance with the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court.