Self-declaration of ads must by June 18, says MIB: ET report

A meeting between ad and media bodies and the MIB has ended in a stalemate.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has insisted the self-declaration of ads must happen by June 18 in its meeting with advertising and media bodies reports The Economic Times.

The meeting was held under the chairmanship of MIB secretary Sanjay Jaju and was attended by Madison World chairman Sam Balsara who represented the media agencies, Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation secretary Sidharth Jain, the Advertising Standards Council of India's Manisha Kapoor, and Google India's Satya Raghavan, among others.

ET’s report states that while the industry bodies were expecting the MIB to come up with solutions that would have ensured compliance with the Supreme Court order and took care of their concerns about implementing the order, MIB told them any delay in implementing the order would result in contempt of May 7 Supreme Court (SC) order.

A media executive privy to the meeting told ET industry representations and legal opinion provided by the government’s law officers could be included in the affidavit the ministry would file before the SC.

On May 7, the SC said all advertisers/advertising agencies must submit a ‘Self-Declaration Certificate’ before publishing or broadcasting any advertisement.