CCRGA meet highlights delay in formation of state committees to regulate govt ad content

The 19th meeting of the Supreme Court-mandated Committe on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA) was held on September 4.

As per a Supreme Court order, states are mandated to set up their respective three-member committees on content regulation of government advertisements. Karnataka, Goa, Mizoram and Nagaland States have already constituted state-level three-member committees. The state government of Chhattisgarh has given its consent to the Central Committee to monitor the content of their government advertisements.

The CCRGA meeting took a serious note of the fact that other states have yet to constitute their respective state level Committees. The CCRGA was of the view that some state governments’ delay in setting up the state-level committees may be construed as contempt of Supreme Court’s order.

The CCRGA’s attention was also drawn to the fact that some respondents were yet to furnish their replies to the notices issued to them in response to the complaints received by the Committee.

In view of the current Covid19 pandemic the committee decided to allow further time to respondents to furnish their replies to the notices in all the pending complaints lodged with the committee.

The CCRGA felt that non-compliance of its decisions was a serious matter. It was of the opinion that in the event of any non-compliance of CCRGA’s orders, it may be constrained to put embargo on issue of further advertisements by nodal agencies of concerned governments, which come under purview of this Committee.

The committee may, if necessary, also decide to summon the concerned official of the government agencies dealing with release of advertisements in the event of undue delay in responding to Committee’s notices.

The CCRGA was set up by the governmnt of India on 6th April, 2016 on the directions of the Supreme Court.