KATHMANDU, July 14: The Supreme Court (SC) has struck down the government's one-door policy for the distribution of public advertisements.
A joint bench of Justices Sharanga Subedi and Nripdhwaj Niraula issued a writ of certiorari on Tuesday, overturning the government's decision.
The current government led by Prime Minister Balendra Shah had introduced the one-door policy requiring all government advertisements to be published and broadcast exclusively through state-owned media outlets.
Government proposes scrapping public welfare advertisements
Stakeholders had strongly opposed the circular issued by the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, arguing that it seriously affected the business interests and rights of private media organizations.
Advocates Ananta Raj Luitel and Rahul Kumar Sah, representing the Nepal Media Society, had filed separate writ petitions at the Supreme Court on Chaitra 23, 2082 (April 5, 2026), challenging what they described as the government's discriminatory decision to allocate public advertisements only to state-owned media.
Hearing the petitions, the joint bench of the Supreme Court annulled the Prime Minister's Office circular. With the ruling, both state-owned and private media organizations will now be eligible to compete equally for government advertisements.
