Advocate Anantaraj Luintel had filed a writ petition on behalf of the Nepal Media Society, claiming that private media should also receive government advertisements.
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The Supreme Court has quashed the government's decision not to give government advertisements to private media. A joint bench of Supreme Court Justices Sharanga Subedi and Nripadhwaj Niraula has ruled to quash the government's decision not to give government advertisements to private media by way of a persuasive order.
The government had decided on 18 Chaitra 2082 to publish/broadcast government advertisements only on government media. Advocate Anantaraj Luintel had filed a writ petition on behalf of the Nepal Media Society, claiming that private media should also receive government advertisements.
Delivering the verdict on the writ petition on Tuesday, Judge Subedi also informed that the full text has been prepared and will be made public within 2 days. The Supreme Court made the verdict on Tuesday after the final arguments that ended a week ago.
The Media Society's authorized petitioner, Advocate Luintel, has responded that justice has been done to all media outlets when the government's unconstitutional decision is quashed. 'Even though it is late, the Supreme Court has taken action to correct the wrong decision of the government, and the government has to think twice about taking such unconstitutional actions in the coming days.'
On the writ petition filed by Advocate Luintel, arguments were held on both sides on 22 and 23 Ashad.
Senior Advocates Shatis Krishna Kharel, Ramesh Badal, Lalit Bahadur Basnet, Dinesh Tripathi and Advocates Anantaraj Luintel, Bikash Bhattarai, Kirtinath Sharma Poudel, Vishal Thapa, Durvasha Luintel and Ram Prasad Pudasaini, Dr. Balkrishna Chapagain, Dr. Premraj Silwal and others argued on behalf of Nepal Media Society, while Attorney General Narayan Dutt Kandel and Deputy Attorney General Uddhav Prasad Pudasaini argued.
On 22 and 23 Ashad, legal practitioners who argued on behalf of the Nepal Media Society in the Supreme Court argued that the government intended to end the media by cutting the advertising facilities that have been given to private media for a long time and blockade them, that the Advertising Act and Regulations provide for the right of proportional advertising media, that the government cannot cartelize by giving to some media and not to others, that the government cannot take away the rights of the advertising board, and that the Prime Minister's Office cannot interfere in the rights of the provincial government and even local governments.
On behalf of the government, the government had argued that the government had taken this step to prevent leakage and corruption of government funds in advertising, but that the government would soon introduce a policy to empower private media.
On 24 Chaitra, Nepal Media Society's authorized advocate Luintel filed a writ petition against the government's ban on private media on 18 Chaitra.
The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, in a secretarial decision on 18 Chaitra, had decided to publish and broadcast government advertisements and information through the media, and issued a circular to all bodies, stating that the Government of Nepal, provincial governments and local governments, and their subordinate bodies, and all public bodies that operate using public funds, should publish and broadcast their information only through Gorkhapatra Sansthan, Radio Nepal, Nepal Television and government-owned media.
