SC scraps decision to provide govt ads only to state-owned media outlets

KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court has scrapped the government’s decision to provide government advertisements only to state-owned media outlets.

A division bench of Justices Saranga Subedi and Nripadhwaj Niraula issued an order to scrap the decision.

The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers issued a circular on April 1 stating that all public notices and advertisements issued through the media by the Government of Nepal, provincial governments, local governments and their subordinate bodies, as well as all public entities funded by the public treasury, would be published and broadcast only through state-owned media.

Advocate Ananta Raj Luitel had challenged the decision at the apex court on April 6 on behalf of the Nepal Media Society—an umbrella body of privately-owned mainstream media organizations in the country.

The apex court order has paved the way for the privately-owned media outlets to receive and publish government advertisements.