The AP high court on Monday observed that there was nothing wrong in carrying the picture of former CM Y S Rajasekhar Reddy on the advertisements being released by the Jagan government in the media on various schemes.
A division bench of the high court comprising Justice Rakesh Kumar and Justice Umadevi made this observation while hearing a public interest litigation opposing the usage of YSR picture and YSR Congress party colour on the government advertisements in the newspapers.
“There is nothing wrong with publishing the pictures of Y S Rajashekar Reddy as he was the former chief minister of the state,” the bench said.
It however, transferred the case to a larger bench comprising chief justice J K Maheshwari.
The bench also questioned the petitioner as to why he had not approached the Supreme Court over the matter, as the latter had already given a judgement allowing the usage of pictures of chief minister and ministers and other personalities in the advertisements.
Advocate General Srinivas Subrahmanyam explained to the bench that the PIL was politically motivated as the petitioner had connections with the Telugu Desam Party.
“It was a benami political interest litigation,” he said.
The AG also informed the court that the previous TDP government too had used the pictures of NTR, Lokesh, and N Chandrababu Naidu in all the advertisements between 2014-19.
“The petitioner did not raise any objection then and his conscience suddenly started pricking once TDP went out of power,” the AG said.
