The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the states’ right to name welfare schemes after chief ministers, former chief ministers and political personalities.

The court set aside a Madras High Court interim order that had taken a contrary view on the naming of the schemes and restrained Tamil Nadu from going ahead with its Ungaludan Stalin scheme aimed at highlighting the welfare measures introduced by the government.

The court rejected senior advocate Maninder Singh’s argument that the scheme was launched for the personal glorification of chief minister M.K. Stalin and was contrary to the 2017 judgment that schemes and policies could not be named after politicians.

The court, while upholding the validity of naming welfare schemes after chief ministers, former chief ministers and other political personalities, also imposed a fine of ₹10 lakh on AIADMK MP C.Ve Shanmugam, who had challenged such usage before
Madras High Court, which culminated in the interim stay of the scheme.

A bench headed by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai said the 2017 judgment delivered by the Supreme Court in the Common Cause Vs Union of India and others that only photographs of Prime Ministers, chief ministers and cabinet ministers can be used on ads for welfare schemes would not extend to those schemes named after political personalities.

“The launching of schemes in the name of political leaders is a phenomenon which is followed throughout the country…. We have a list of 45 schemes that have been floated in the names of various political leaders in TN (Tamil Nadu). We do not wish to refer to those 45 schemes to avoid embarrassment to the parties. When such schemes have been floated with the leaders of all political parties, we do not appreciate the anxiety of the petitioner to choose only one party and one leader. If the petitioner was so concerned about the misuse of funds, he should have challenged all such schemes….

“Time and again, we have observed that political battles be settled before the electoral roll and courts should not be used for this, the writ petition was misconceived in law, we are allowing the SLP, we quash the impugned order, the writ petition pending before the HC is dismissed with costs of ₹10 lakh,” the bench, which also had Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice N.V. Anjari, said in an order.

“The petitioner before the high court shall deposit ₹10 lakh with the state of Tamil Nadu within one week. The state shall use the money for the implementation of any
of the beneficial schemes for the underprivileged in the state.”

The court was of the view that the AIADMK MP chose to target only the DMK government, whereas similar schemes were being executed in different states.