new delhi the centre on tuesday opposed any regulation on release of government advertisements to the media though a week ago its affidavit had agreed with the supreme courtappointed panels guidelines to prevent ruling dispensations from garnering political mileage from such ads the court had set up an expert panel comprising prof madav menon t k vishwanathan and senior advocate ranjit kumar now the solicitor general of india which had given detailed guidelines to prevent ruling political parties from using advertisements to patronize media houses and to glorify leaders for political mileage the panel had also recommended appointment of an ombudsman to scrutinize government advertisements to check for arbitrariness the centres affidavit filed by k ganesan director general of directorate of audio visual publicity davp on february 5 agreed substantially with the expert panels recommendations while taking mild objection to the word political mileage saying a democratically elected government functions through political leaders when additional solicitor general maninder singh commenced arguments for the centre on tuesday opposing the proposed guidelines a bench of justices ranjan gogoi and pc ghose said the government had agreed with 99 of the expert panels recommendations attorney general mukul rohatgi took over from singh and said the centre was totally opposed to the court framing any guidelines for release of government advertisements to the media as the field exclusively belonged to the executive the committees recommendations should not be accepted the government spends money on advertisements to inform citizens about its policy decisions and works undertaken for general public good the money allocation is approved by parliament and the spending is put to strict auditing by the comptroller and auditor general cag if there is already scrutiny by parliament and cag does the judiciary need to regulate it further rohatgi asked and warned that another pil could be filed in the supreme court asking why the government was allocating 20 of the budget to defence sector and less to education ombudsman concept to regulate release of advertisements is unacceptable this will become a precensorship issuance of regulatory guidelines will be contrary to the entire ethos of democratic governance as parliament and cag are already monitoring the spending on advertisements he said the court reserved its judgment on pils filed by ngos common cause and centre for public interest litigation cpil appearing for common cause advocate meera bhatia suggested that the proposed ombudsman should distinguish between facts analysis and opinion intended to be disseminated by the government through advertisements cpil counsel prashant bhushan termed the expert panels suggestion as excellent and suggested that the ombudsman should not be chosen by the government but by an independent body like election commission countering the arguments rohatgi said if such a guideline was given the cloak of a court mandate then every government advertisement could be branded as one intended to garner political mileage the government has a right to publicize its achievements and policy decisions should the judiciary stop this legitimate practice in a democracy it is a