Madras HC adjourns hearing on CAS

Centre yet to respond to court's notice

The Madras High Court has adjourned the hearing on the plea for stay on conditional access system (CAS) in Chennai to October 20. The plea for stay was filed by M B Nirmal, the founder and chairman of Exnora International, a Chennai-based activist group.

The first bench in Madras High Court presided by chief justice B Subashan Reddy and justice A Kulasekharan adjourned the hearing for want of response from the central government as to why CAS had not been introduced in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. The union government had originally planned to introduce CAS in all four major metros.

Commenting on the issue of CAS' apparent failure to pick steam in Chennai, media analysts point out that, "the Chennai population is predominantly made-up of Tamil and Telugu-speaking people. As long as the regional channels like Sun TV, KTV and Gemini and Teja, continue to remain free-to-air, the switchover to CAS would not gain momentum." It is the Hindi speaking community that have a problem in dealing with the CAS-regime, the media analyst said.

The starting of the cricket season could help in increasing the offtake of set-top boxes (STBs) in the city but would not be sustained once the season is completed.

The analyst also said that complaints from customers on problems related to STBs was on the rise.

"When the local cable operators switch their loyalty from one multi-service operator to another, the customers are left high and dry with a set top box that becomes useless." The encryption and decryption software used by Chennai two leading MSOs, Hathway and SCV are different.

"From the inputs we get from our members in Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi it seems like the CAS would not be introduced in these cities in the near future," the analyst said.