‘CLOCK’ SYMBOL CASE: SC ASKS AJIT PAWAR-LED NCP TO GIVE INFO OF ADS AFTER ITS ORDER
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Ajit Pawarled Nationalist Congress Party to furnish details of newspaper advertisements issued in compliance of its order which instructed the faction to run all publicity with disclaimer that the matter of allocation of ‘clock’ symbol to it is sub judice.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and KV Viswanathan asked senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the faction led by the Maharashtra deputy chief minister, to furnish the details of advertisements issued after Sharad Pawar alleged that they are not complying with the court’s March 19 order.
The bench said, “Mr Rohatgi you have your instructions on how many advertisements were issued after this order. We might be required to take a view if he (Ajit Pawar) is behaving like this. Nobody has a right to deliberately misconstrue our order.” Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Sharad Pawar, said that on March 19, this court passed a reasoned order in which they (Ajit Pawar group) were asked to issue advertisements that the matter of allocation of ‘clock’ symbol is sub judice before this court and they were permitted to use the same subject to final outcome of these proceedings. “Now, they have not complied with the direction and advertisements are being issued by them without the disclaimer. They have even filed an application before this court, seeking relaxation of the reasoned order. This cannot be changed. We are in the middle period of the elections,” Singhvi submitted.
He urged the court to not entertain any such application for review of the order. “Elections are on, your lordships will not entertain such a review. This is nothing but a blatant review. It is a reasoned order. This cannot be changed, we are in the middle of the elections,” Singhvi added.