TV ads: EC may moot expanded guideline panel

The Election Commission is likely to suggest to Supreme Court on Thursday that the committee preparing guidelines for monitoring political a...

The Election Commission is likely to suggest to Supreme Court on Thursday that the committee preparing guidelines for monitoring political ads be expanded to include more representatives from the government’s side.

The Commission, which is holding a late night meeting to formulate its position, has to give its response on how best to monitor political ads during the elections to the Supreme Court by Thursday morning.

During a hearing last Monday, the court asked the government to assist the EC in whatever way required to set up guidelines to monitor political ads, especially surrogate ads, from being slanderous, indecent or hurting the religious sentiments of the viewers.

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The Supreme Court also asked the EC to nominate the Solicitor General to the guidlines committee.

Under pressure from political parties, the EC is also likely to reduce the time-frame required to vet the ads. Though it was not submitted before the court, the EC’s earlier blueprint for monitoring ads had a 10-day time-frame for vetting ads.

After an all-party meeting on Tuesday, BJP’s representative V.K. Maholtra said that the EC should not take more than 24 hours to vet a single ad. The Law Ministry is also said to have suggested to the EC that the time should be reduced to five or seven days.

‘‘The commission is expected to reduce the time from ten days to seven days for the pre-telecast clearance of advertisements by political parties,’’ sources in the EC said.

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The EC had earlier proposed the setting up of a monitoring committee for pre-telecast clearance observing that it would be difficult to monitor political advertisements on television as directed by the apex court.