Supreme Court Overturns Government Ban on Ads in Private Media

Kathmandu. The Supreme Court has overturned the government's decision to ban government advertisements in private media. On Tuesday, a joint bench of Supreme Court Justices Sharanga Subedi and Nripadhwaj Niroula delivered the verdict. The government had decided on Chaitra 18, 2082, to provide government advertisements and information only to state-owned media, prohibiting them for private media. Advocate Anantaraj Luintel, authorized representative of the Nepal Media Society, filed a writ petition against the government's decision on Chaitra 24. Arguments were heard from both sides on Ashad 22 and 23 regarding the writ. Senior advocates Satishkrishna Kharel, Ramesh Badal, Lalitbahadur Basnet, Dinesh Tripathi, and advocates Anantaraj Luintel, Bikash Bhattarai, Keertinath Sharma Poudel, Dr. Premraj Silwal, among others, argued on behalf of the Media Society. On Chaitra 18, 2082, the Prime Minister's Office and Council of Ministers, through a secretary-level decision, issued a circular stating that all public information and advertisements from the federal government, provinces, and local levels would only be published and broadcast in government media such as Gorkhapatra Sansthan, Radio Nepal, and Nepal Television. This decision deprived private sector radio, television, newspapers, and online media of government advertisements.