BJP files appeal against Calcutta High Court order on derogatory ads about TMC

The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has filed an appeal before a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court against a single judge order restraining the party from publishing any "derogatory or slanderous" advertisements against the Trinamool Congress (TMC) party. .The appeal was mentioned today for urgent listing before Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya. The counsel representing the BJP alleged that the national party was not heard before the single judge passed the order in question."The TMC did not serve a notice to my client so we didn't appear and the judge could not hear us before passing orders and making observations," the counsel said..The Court considered the request and said it would hear the matter on Wednesday morning."We will hear this matter as the first item tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. This will be subject to serving of the notice to other side," the Bench said.When the counsel insisted for an urgent hearing today, the Court said,"Tomorrow morning. Nothing will happen in a day.".The appeal has been filed against a order passed by Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya on Monday (May 20), in which the single judge had also pulled up the Election Commission of India (ECI) for "grossly failing" to address the complaints filed by the TMC against BJP ads that targeted the ruling party in West Bengal.The order was passed on a petition by TMC to restrain the BJP from carrying such ads. In this regard, the TMC had cited certain ads published in certain newspapers against the Mamata Banerjee-led party. Referring to one of the ads which read 'Sanatan Virodhi Trinamool' (Trinamool Opposes Sanatan), the counsel representing the TMC had argued (before the single judge) that the ads violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), which prohibits advertising even under the guise of news articles, along the lines of caste, religion, etc..Finding the advertisements in question to be in violation of the MCC, the single judge had restrained the BJP from publishing such ads until further orders."A perusal of the impugned ads published on various dates in this month, clearly evince that those are in violation of the letter and spirit of the MCC, which clearly prohibits all participants in the election process from criticism of other parties or their workers based on unverified allegations or distortion," the single judge had observed.