Tatas move HC against Zee TV

Tata Sky peeved at denial of broadcasting rights.

Tata Sky Limited, a Tata Group-owned DTH operator, has moved the Delhi High Court challenging the "refusal" of Zee Televisions Limited to grant rights for broadcasting the 20 channels it runs. The company has alleged that the refusal was deliberately intended to favour Zee's sister concern ASC Enterprises Limited, which is the only other DTH operator in the country.

According to Tata Sky, for the past one-and-a-half years, Zee has been dragging its feet on granting rights to it by demanding a lumpsum payment of $ 5 million in addition to an "exorbitant" demand of Rs 149.85 for each cable connection every month.

It was submitted that the demand for Rs 149.85 per cable connection was in clear violation of the earlier assurance of Zee to charge only Rs 83.85 for each connection in terms of the rules and tariffs fixed by the TDSAT.

However, Tata alleged that in contrary to the assurances and the directions of TDSAT, Zee was insisting on being paid a lumpsum amount and the exorbitant fee, mainly to edege out the company from DTH services competition, so as to favour ASC Enterprises.

Tata Sky submitted that Zee's refusal to grant it access to some of the popular channels like Zee Cinema, Zee Sports, CNBC, HBO, Cartoon Network and Pogo would cause a serious dent in its efforts to popularise the DTH (direct-to-home) network services which claim to offer a more affordable service to the subscribers.

Justice Anil Kumar, while admitting Tata's petition, issued notices to Zee Televisions and its sister concerns Zee Telefilms, Turner International Indian Private Limited and ASC Enterprises Limited to file their replies within four weeks.

At present only Zee-owned ASC Enteprises and Tata Sky have licensing rights to operate DTH services in the country.