Not mandatory to display portraits of a long list of personalities in all government buildings, State tells HC
The State government on Wednesday advised the Madras High Court that it’s not mandatory to display the portraits of a host of personalities, together with the President, Prime Minister, incumbent Chief Minister and previous Chief Ministers in all government buildings. It stated a 2006 Government Order (G.O.) makes use of the phrase ‘may’ and due to this fact it was up to the authorities involved to display some of a long list of portraits talked about in the G.O.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy closed a public curiosity litigation petition after recording the submissions made by Advocate General Vijay Narayan, on behalf of the State, that it won’t be in public curiosity to make it mandatory for all of these portraits to be displayed in all government buildings. The judges noticed that the officers ought to act in accordance with regulation on the difficulty.
The A-G advised the courtroom that there have been 12 former Chief Ministers of the State and it might be just about not possible to display the portraits of all of them in all government buildings. R. Jayakkumar, a Bharatiya Janata Party member from Cuddalore, had filed the case in search of a route to the State government and the secretary to the Governor to be sure that the portraits of President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been displayed in all State government workplaces throughout the State.
The litigant complained that solely the portraits of incumbent Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, former Chief Ministers and others have been displayed in government workplaces and people of the President and the Prime Minister have been uncared for. He stated that a Government Order issued manner again in 1978 lists out the portraits that might be displayed in public workplaces and buildings and so they embrace the portraits of the President and Prime Minister, other than these of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Tiruvalluvar, C.N. Annadurai, C. Rajagopalachari and Thanthai Periyar.
Subsequently, one other G.O. was issued in 1990, together with the portraits of B.R. Ambedkar in the list and a 2006 G.O. added Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar, V.O. Chidambaranar, Quaid-e-Millath, Indira Gandhi, former Chief Ministers, incumbent Chief Minister and Tamil Annai to the list of personalities whose portraits might be displayed.
However, in follow, the portraits of the President and Prime Minister have been absent in most of the general public workplaces and buildings, the petitioner claimed. He additionally claimed to have offered a portrait of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 17 to be displayed in Cuddalore Collectorate however alleged that it was not displayed.
Stating that States couldn’t perform with out the help of the Centre in a federal construction, the petitioner argued that Tamil Nadu enjoys most monetary help from the Centre and due to this fact, it will need to have the minimal obligation to display the portraits of the President and Prime Minister in all public workplaces and buildings.