SUBAL KUMAR DEY Vs. STATE OF TRIPURA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY filing this writ petition, the petitioner prayed for quashing the provision contained in Clause 13(a) of the Tripura Advertisement Guidelines, 2009 (Annexure -7 to the writ petition) and also prayed for directing the respondents to comply the judgment and order dated 19.11.2010 passed by the then Gauhati High Court in W.P.(C) No.399 of 2009(Annexure -14 to the writ petition), which has been upheld by the Supreme Court and further prayed for directing the respondents to allot classified and display advertisements equally amongst 'A' category daily newspapers including the newspaper of the petitioner, namely, 'Syandan Patrika' and further to issue additional advertisements to the said newspaper of the petitioner so as to cover the deficiency in allotment of the said advertisements to the newspaper of the petitioner during the period from 2nd May, 2012 till now in comparison to other 'A' category newspapers and to treat classified advertisement and display advertisement at par for the purpose of distribution amongst the newspapers.

(2.) HEARD learned senior counsel, Mr. A. K. Bhowmik, assisted by Mr. R. Dutta for the petitioner and learned Advocate General, assisted by learned Additional Government Advocate, Mr. S. Chakraborty for the respondents.

(3.) THE petitioner, inter alia, contended that he is the owner, printer, publisher and editor of the daily newspaper, namely, 'Syandan Patrika' printed and published from Agartala in Bengali language. It is contended that from the very inception the petitioner's newspaper played an important role in formation of public opinion against corruption and misrule and also fighting for the public cause and because of such role the State Government is/was unfavourable to the said newspaper on various occasions. It is further contended by the petitioner that in the year 1985 an advertisement policy was made by the respondents in supersession of all previous advertisement policies and the daily newspapers were categorized into 'A' category, 'B' category and 'C' category according to circulation, size and pages and by a Notification dated 23.04.1988, the petitioner's newspaper 'Syandan Patrika' was categorized as 'B' category. By Notification dated 23.10.1998 a new advertisement policy was invoked and the petitioner and other newspapers could not accept certain conditions of the said advertisement policy and, therefore, the petitioner filed W.P.(C) No. 507 of 1999 and other two daily newspapers, i.e., 'Dainik Sambad' filed W.P.(C) No. 52 of 1999 and 'Tripura Darpan' filed W.P.(C) No. 46 of 1999 and all those writ petitions were disposed of by a common order dated 16.07.2008 since it was submitted by the learned State counsel that the categorization of newspaper has already been considered and by a letter dated 20.03.2001, issued by respondent No.2 (Annexure -5 to the writ petition), the petitioner's newspaper was categorized as 'A I' w.e.f. 25.11.2000 subject to submission of certain information.