RTI activist’s plea said public money was being “misused” for the publicity of the ruling party

The Patna High Court on Tuesday asked the Bihar government not to use pictures of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Ministers in the Badh Chala Bihar campaign.

Hearing a writ petition filed by Right to Information (RTI) activist Shiv Prakash Rai, a two-member Bench of Chief Justice L Narasimha Reddy and Justice Anjana Mishra ordered the interim stay. Mr Rai’s plea said public money was being “misused” for the publicity of the ruling party.

The court order comes a day after Mr. Kumar declared that his government had already covered 18,000 villages through the campaign to get people’s feedback on the State’s development.

Speaking to The Hindu after the court order, Mr. Rai said he would demand the recovery of the money spent on the campaign. “The State government has spent crores of public money through the Badh Chala Bihar programme to promote the ruling party and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar,” he said.

“The state government has said that it was spending only Rs. 14 crore on the campaign, but we’re going to challenge the contention in court,” Mr. Rai’s counsel Dinu Kumar said.

Data collection



Meanwhile, Bihar Additional Advocate-General Lalit Kishore said the court had ruled that photographs of the Chief Minister, Ministers or any other leader, as well as audio-visual material, would not be used during the Bihar Badh Chala campaign.

“However, the data collection under the campaign would continue as usual and the court had said it would hear the case again after four weeks,” said Mr Kishore. “We had argued that the campaign will lead to a purposeful document for any government which comes to power.”

The court had earlier sought all documents related to the campaign from the State government to decide whether it was a publicity move of the ruling party JD(U) for the coming elections.

The State’s Information and Public Relations Department (IPRD) is piloting the project that will cover 40,000 villages in the State, while eliciting feedback from four crore people on ways to develop Bihar.