LG turns up heat on AAP, orders official to recover ₹97cr spent by govt on ads

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s lieutenant governor V K Saxena has directed chief secretary Naresh Kumar to recover ₹97 crore from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that was spent by the Arvind Kejriwal government on advertisements that allegedly violated Supreme Court’s guidelines, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Saxena’s order cited the findings of a Union government-appointed three-member panel which concluded on September 16, 2016, that the Kejriwal government was guilty of “misusing” taxpayers’ money on advertisements and said the party should reimburse the funds. The recovery is related to advertisements published outside Delhi.

In a fresh order, LG Saxena also directed that legal action including attachment of properties should be taken in case AAP doesn’t deposit the amount and ordered scrutiny of advertisements issued by the government after 2019.

Saxena’s order is likely to escalate the running feud between the LG and the AAP government. The LG earlier this year ordered multiple probes against the AAP government including one over the excise policy in which deputy CM Manish Sisodia has been made an accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation. AAP has dismissed all the probes and said nothing has been found in multiple raids by federal agencies against Manish Sisodia.

AAP’s chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj responded to Saxena’s order on Tuesday, saying it was illegal and that the LG did not have the power to recover the money from AAP.

“The order is illegal. The order has no legal value. All states ruled by the BJP including Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Goa; and Congress governments in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have also been publishing advertisements of their schemes in newspapers in Delhi. The combined cost of advertisements placed by BJP-ruled states in Delhi is ₹22,000 crore. When the BJP pays ₹22,000 crore back to the exchequer, we will pay ₹97 crore to the exchequer. LG has no understanding of the law and no shame,” Bharadwaj said in a press conference on Tuesday.

The LG’s order was issued in a file in the wake of a complaint submitted on September 12, 2022, by leader of opposition in Delhi assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri.

“The department secretary shall take necessary action to recover ₹97.14 crore with penal interest within 15 days from AAP failing which all consequential legal action including attachment, etc. of the properties of the party shall be taken in a time-bound manner. Simultaneously, the chief secretary is directed to put up full facts of the matter before the Election Commission of India..…regarding advertisements on behalf of political parties, for appropriate action,” the LG said in the file notings. HT has reviewed a copy of the LG’s order.

The Supreme Court on May 13, 2015, barred ruling parties from putting pictures of their leaders in ads publicising welfare schemes. It said government ads would only carry photographs of the president, the prime minister and the Chief Justice of India.

A committee on content regulation of government advertising (CCRGA) was also set up following the court verdict which scrutinised the city government’s advertisements on a complaint of Congress leader Ajay Maken and concluded that advertisements worth ₹97 crore were in violation of the guidelines.

The LG’s order said the order to recover ₹97.14 crore hadn’t been complied with even after the lapse of 5 years and 8 months and called for scrutiny of all the advertisement issued after August 9, 2019 when a content regulation committee set up by Manish Sisodia started scrutinising the ads.

The LG also rejected the content regulation committee for Government of NCT of Delhi set up on Sisodia’s orders and underlined that only CCRGA which was constituted by the ministry of information and broadcasting was valid.

The LG has also ordered the director of information and publicity to assess expenditure incurred on the functioning of the content regulation panel set up by Sisodia and ways to recover the expenditure from those concerned within 30 days.

LG has also asked for Shabdarth – the public agency formed by the Delhi government --, currently manned by 35 individuals who are working on contract out of the total sanctioned strength of 38 officials, to be manned by government servants, instead of private individuals. The finances of Shabdarth ever since it came into being shall also be audited, the LG has ordered.