Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena has directed chief secretary to recover Rs 97 crore from AAP for publishing political advertisements as government ads.
The governor said the ruling party contravened the orders of the apex court, Delhi HC order of 2016 and the Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising’s (CCRGA) order of 2016.
Singling out specific advertisements by AAP as being in “stark violation of guidelines”, CCRGA had in 2016 asked the Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) to quantify the amounts spent by it on such advertisements and recover the same from the AAP.
Rs 97,14,69,137 had been spent or booked on account of “non-conforming advertisements”, the DIP had said.
“Of this, while payments amounting to over Rs 42.26 crore had already been released by the DIP, Rs 54.87 crore for advertisements published were still pending disbursal,” a report published by India Today quoted source as saying.
In 2017, the DIP ordered AAP to pay Rs 42.26 crores to the state exchequer immediately and directly pay the pending amount of Rs 54.87 crore to the advertising agencies or publications concerned within 30 days.
However, even after more than 5 years, the AAP government in Delhi is yet to comply with the order issued by the DIP.
Besides, the LG had asked to audit the finances of Shabdarth – a public agency formed by the Kejriwal government. Shabdarth constitutes 35 individuals on a contractual or outsourced basis, out of the total sanctioned strength of 38 officials. The agency was supposed to be manned by government servants, instead of private individuals.
The LG has now ordered that Shabdarth will be manned by government officials and not by outsourced or contractual employees.