BJP moves Supreme Court against Calcutta High Court order barring derogatory ads about TMC

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against a Calcutta High Court order restraining it from from publishing "derogatory" or "slanderous" advertisements targeting the Trinamool Congress (TMC) party during ongoing Lok Sabha elections. .The petition was mentioned by Senior Advocate Saurabh Mishra for urgent hearing before a bench of Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal which said it will consider listing the matter."It was an ex parte order, in force till June 4," Mishra representing the BJP said.Expressing reluctance to hear the matter, Justice Trivedi asked,"Why do you not move the next vacation bench".After the counsel insisted for an urgent hearing, the Court said,"Okay, we will see.".A division bench of the High Court had on Wednesday declined to interfere with a single-judge's interim order to restrain the BJP from publishing "derogatory" or "slanderous" advertisements against TMC. The bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya had emphasised that it was imperative that all political parties follow healthy electoral practices, as the ultimate victim of misleading electoral campaigns was the voter..The High Court had made the remarks while hearing the appeal moved by BJP against the order passed by Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya on May 20, in which the single judge had also pulled up the Election Commission of India (ECI) for "grossly failing" to address the complaints filed by the TMC against BJP ads that targeted the ruling party in West Bengal.The order had been passed on a petition by TMC to restrain the BJP from carrying such ads. In this regard, the TMC had cited certain ads published in certain newspapers against the Mamata Banerjee-led party. Finding the advertisements in question to be in violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), the single-judge had restrained the BJP from publishing such ads until further orders."A perusal of the impugned ads published on various dates in this month, clearly evince that those are in violation of the letter and spirit of the MCC, which clearly prohibits all participants in the election process from criticism of other parties or their workers based on unverified allegations or distortion," the single-judge had observed.