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Supreme Court of India

STATE OF KARNATAKAversusCOMMON CAUSE AND ORS. ETC. ETC.

Citation
2016 INSC 271
Decided
18 March 2016
Disposal
Disposed off

Holding

The Court extended the permission to publish photographs to Governors and Chief Ministers and allowed departmental ministers' photographs to be used in lieu of the Prime Minister’s or Chief Minister’s photographs.

Summary

The Supreme Court reviewed its earlier order dated 13 May 2015 that allowed publication of photographs of the President, Prime Minister and Chief Justice in government advertisements, subject to the authorities' decision. Upon hearing the parties, the Court extended the exception to include Governors and Chief Ministers of the States, permitting their photographs to be published. It also allowed the photograph of the departmental (Cabinet) minister in charge of a ministry to be used in place of the Prime Minister’s photograph, and similarly for the Chief Minister at the State level. All other directions from the 2015 judgment were left unchanged except for these modifications. The review petitions were consequently disposed of with the amended directions.

Issues considered

  • Whether the exception in the 2015 judgment permitting photographs of the President, Prime Minister and Chief Justice can be extended to Governors and Chief Ministers.
  • Whether photographs of departmental ministers may be used in lieu of the Prime Minister’s or Chief Minister’s photographs in government advertisements.

Subjects

government advertisementspublication of photographspublic interest litigationreview petitionconstitutional functionariesSupreme Courtmodification of order

Judgment

                           [2016] 2 S.C.R. 902



A                      STATE OF KARNATAKA
                                   v.
               COMMON CAUSE AND ORS. ETC. ETC.
               (Review Petition (C) Nos.1879-1881 of2015)

B                           MARCH 18, 2016
     [RANJAN GOGOi AND PINAKI CHANDRA GROSE, JJ.]
          Public Interest Litigation - Governmem advertisements -
    Publication of photographs of functionaries - Modification in the
    earlier order permitting publication of photographs of President.
C   Prime Minister and Chief Justice of the country in the Government
    Advertisements - Permission extended to publish pholographs of
    the Governors and the Chief Ministers of the Stale and Ministers -
    Review.
          CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Review Petition (C) Nos.
D   1879-1881 of2015 in W. P. (c) Nos. 13/2003, 197/2004 & 302/2012.
                                 WITH
          REVIEW PETITION (C) NO. 1876-1877 OF 2015 IN
          W. P. (C) NO. 197 OF 2004
          REVIEW PETITION (C) NO. 1834 OF 2015 IN W. P.
E
          (C) NO. 197 OF 2004
          REVIEW PETITION (C) NO. 2703-2705 OF 2015 IN
          W. P. (C) NOS. 13/2003, 197/2004 & 302/2012
          REVIEW PETITION (C) NO. 3191-3193 OF 2015 IN
F         W. P.(C)NOS. 13/2003, 197/2004,&302/2012
          REVIEW PETITION (C) NO. 3275-3277 OF 2015 IN
        . W. P. (C) NOS. 13/2003, 197/2004, & 302/2012
          REVIEW PETITION (C) NO. 3259 OF 2015 IN W. P.
          (C) NO. 197/2004
G         REVIEW PETITION (C) NO. 3674-3676 OF 2015 IN
          W. P. (C) NOS. 13/2003, 197/2004, & 302/2012
           REVIEW PETITION (C) NOS. 123-125 OF 2016 IN
           W. P. (C) NOS. 13/2003, l 97 /2004, & 302/2012
          From the Judgment and Order dated 13.05.2015 of the Hon 'ble
H
                                   902
   STATE OF KARNATAKA v. COMMON CAUSE AND ORS.                                  903
                     ETC. ETC.

Court in Writ Petition (C) No. 13 of2003 with Writ Petition (C) No. 197          A
of2004 and Writ Petition (C) No. 302 of2012.
        Mukul Rohatgi, AG, Madhu Sudan Naik, Adv.Gen. C. D. Singh,
 Addi. Adv ..Gen. Krishna Sarma, S.S. Shamshery, AAGs, T.R.
 Andhiyarujina, Kailash Vasdev, Kapil Sibal, Rakesh Dwivedi, Dinesh
 Dwi,·edi, Gopal Jain, Vikas Singh, Sr. Advs: Subramonium Prasad, Sr.            B
.Adv.AAG, Joseph Aristotle S., Mrs. PriyaAristotle, M.B. Elakkumanan,
 Soumitra G. Chaudhuri, Umraon Singh Rawat, Parijat Sinha, Ms.
 Meenakshi Shanna, Navnit Kumar, Ms. Bamali Das, Ms. Vartika Walia,
 (for Mis Corporate Law Group), M. Yogesh Kanna, Jayant Patel, Prateek
 Dwivedi, Krishan Mishra, Yasharth Kant, Abhisth Kumar, Manish S.                C
 Srivastava, Nishant Singh, Abhishek Kumar Singh, Sanjeeb Panigrahi,
 Mr./Ms. Stephanie Sonanane, Prajnashree Purohit, Prashant Bhushan,
 Roh it Kumar Singh, 0. Kuttan, Ramesh K. Mishra, Ms. Meera Bhatia,
 Balraj Dewan, Ms. Vinita, M. M. Kashyap, Shalinder Saini, D.S. Mahra,
 Ms. Madhavi Divan, Ms. Nidhi Khanna, ShreekantN. Terdal, Sandeepan              D
 Pathak, Ms. Saumya Kalra, Ms. Shashi Juneja, K. V. Mohan, V. Tiwari,
 Siddhartha Dave, Chirag M. Shroff, Rohit Kumar, Siddharth Bhatnagar,
 Sidharth Mohan, Ms. Garima Tiwari, Nirnimesh'Dube, Amit Sharma,
 Ms. S. Spandana Reddy, lshu Prayas, Harshvardhan Singh Rathore,
 Ms. Ruchi Kohli, Aman Panwar, Mudit Gupta, L.R. Singh, Advs. for the           .E
 appearing parties.
       Petitioner-in-person
       The following Order of the Court was delivered
                                ORDER
        I. We have heard the learned counsels for all the contesting parties.    F
 Upon due consideration, we review our judgment dated 13'" May,2015
 passed in Writ Petition (Civil) No.13 of2003, Writ Petition (Civil) No.197
 of2004 and Writ Petition (Civil) No.302of2012 to the extent indicated
 below:
       (i)    The exception carved out in paragraph 23 of the aforesaid          G
              judgment dated 13•" May, 2Q 15 pennitting the publication of
              the photographs of the President, Prime Minister and Chief
              Justice of the country, subject to the said authorities
              themselves deciding the question, is now extended to the
              Governors and the Chief Ministers of the States.
904                 SUPREME COURT REPORTS                         [2016] 2 S.C.R.



A            (ii)     In lieu of the photograph of the Prime Minister, the
                      photograph of the Departmental (Cabinet) Minister/Minister
                      In-charge of the concerned Ministry may be published, if
                      so desired.
             (iii)    In the States, similarly, the photograph of the Departmental
 B                    (Cabinet) Minister/Minister In-charge in lieu of the
                      photograph of the Chief Minister may be published, if so
                      desired.
             (iv) All othe~ observations/directions in the aforesaid judgment
                  ·dated 13'' May, 20 I 5 shall continue to remain in force subject
 C·                to.the above modification.
             2. The review petitions are disposed of in the above terms.
      Nidhi Jain                                     ReYie\Y Petitions are disposed of.


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