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The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has approached the Madras High Court with an appeal seeking to set aside a stay order issued by a Single Judge restricting the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) from disconnecting the cable TV signals of the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable Tv Corporation Ltd in Chennai metro area as part of stopping transmission of analog cable TV signals in the area.
The appeal is against an interim order passed by Justice V Dhanapalan restricting the Ministry from disconnecting the analogue signal of Arasu Cable, as it has announced through a press release of TRAI.
The TRAI press release last year, said that digitisation should be immediately implemented in Chennai and as part of it, the analogue signals has to be switched off any time.
However, since the appeal was filed in delay, a condone for application has been filed with the Court and a notice was issued to both the parties, according to sources.
Arasu Cable, run by the State government has been operating as a Multi-System Operator (MSO) and applied with Ministry for Digital Addressable System (DAS) licence, to offer services as digitisation has become compulsory. However, the Ministry has delayed taking decision on the issue, alleged Arasu Cable earlier. Following this, the cable TV operator has filed a petition with the High Court seeking its direction to the Centre to take a decision on the DAS licence. Earlier, considering the appeal of Arasu Cable to restrain the TRAI from any action stopping analogue signal of the company, the court observed that the authority is not justified in not taking any decision on the matter.
In its appeal, the Ministry has said that "The learned Judge ought to have granted time for filing counter affidavit in the Miscellaneous Petition No 1 of 2013 seeking for grant injunction restraining the Second Respondent (TRAI) therein from interfering with the transmission of Cable TV signals by the Corporation in Chennai Metro Area and ought not to have disposed the miscellaneous petition at the admission stage itself."
It added that TRAI is entitled to ensure compliance of provisions of the regulations and tariff orders of the Authority and therefore the press note issued by the TRAI informing that transmission of analog cable TV signal is illegal in Chennai and to ensure that Cable TV connections are received only from Cable TV Operator supplying the DAS signal is in accordance with the Act and Rules.
"The order passed by the learned Judge is against law, weight of evidence and probabilities of the case," it said.
It may be noted that while the DAS has been implemented in various parts of the country, by switching from analog to digital signals which require set top boxes to receive signals, a group of cable TV operators has opposed the move in Chennai, which has left the digitisation of the city pending. Arasu is one of the major MSO in the State.
Earlier, when the relevant matter was taken for hearing by the Single Judge, Arasu cable has submitted an affidavit stating that the Corporation is providing 90-100 channels to the subscribers through the Local Cable Operators (LCOs) including Free to Air Channels, Pay Channels and local channels.
