"Every CM does it": Delhi High Court on plea against use of PM selfie points, civil servants, soldiers to promote government schemes

The Delhi High Court on Monday remarked that there seemed to be nothing wrong prima facie in government popularising its schemes via civil servants and defence personnel. .The Court also took a prima facie favourable view to the direction by Ministry of Defence to establish selfie points at various defence institutions and sainik schools to showcase the achievements of MoD."When miners were trapped in Uttarakhand, Indian Army and NDRF did a phenomenal job. If Army wants to popularize it with selfie point, I don't think anyone can have grievance. Suppose I see a selfie point on pension benefits, my reaction would be what is the benefit. Would it not lead to "debate or enquiry" on this aspect," the Court asked. Specifically on the issue of using Prime Minister's photographs at such selfie points, the Court remarked,"Isn’t this norm? Each and every Chief Minister is putting photos [in advertisements]?"The Court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by former IAS officer EAS Sharma and former IIM Ahmedabad Dean Jagdeep S Chhokar challenging the use of civil servants and defence personnel for promotion of government schemes and policies.The plea sought quashing of two orders issued by the government - one by MoD that directed the Army, Navy and the Air Force to set up selfie points with images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to showcase achievements of MoD and another issued by Department of Personnel and Training to deploy Joint Secretaries/ Directors/ Deputy Secretaries as District Rath Prabharis to showcase the achievements of last 9 years of the Government of India. .A bench of Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) Manmohan and Justice Mini Pushkarna asked the Central government counsel to seek instructions and listed the matter for January 4, 2024.The Court also questioned the petitioners on why a welfare scheme should not be popularised."If a welfare scheme is there, should that scheme not be popularised? There are always snaps of Chief Ministers or Prime Minister in advertisements," the Court said.On only schemes from the past nine years being highlighted, the Court said,"Every person wants to be aware of latest schemes of government. It is not that someone wants to know what happened 50 year ago, for that there is Prime Minister's museum.".The plea, filed through advocate Prashan Bhushan has sought enforcement of fundamental rights of the people of India under articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India to protect the civil services and the armed forces from being used as an arm of the ruling political party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its election campaign.As per the plea, these action of the government of deputing public servants for political purposes violate various statutory rules and disturb free and fair elections with level playing field.The plea raised two substantial questions of law.First, whether under the constitutional scheme, a ruling political party can issue any order directing government servants to celebrate government policies during the period that the party has been in power.Second, whether any such celebration amount to use of government machinery for election purpose.As per the PIL, such celebration is violative of Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, All India Services (Conduct Rules), Representation of the People Act, Army Rules, and certain government guidelines.