The Hindu : SC allows Star's plea

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003

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SC allows Star's plea

By Our Legal Correspondent

New Delhi SepT. 9. The Supreme Court today set aside an interim order of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission directing the Star, the Sony and the ESPN TV channels to provide uninterrupted signals of their channels to Siti Cable for distribution to the cable operators.

A Bench, comprising Justice N. Santosh Hegde and Justice B.P. Singh, however, asked the Star and other channels to provide Siti Cable, which had switched over to headends-in-the-sky(HITS)-based transmission from terrestrial mode, to release the signals on the terrestrial mode till the MRTPC decided the main dispute.

Allowing the appeals filed by the three channels, the Bench said whether Siti Cable would be entitled to use the HITS-based transmission, for which the cable networking company had spent nearly Rs. 500 crores to purchase equipment, would be decided by the MRTPC.

The MRTPC order was passed on August 27 on an application by Siti which apprehended that once the Conditional Access System (CAS) came into force from September 1, the Star and other groups might not release the signals. Contending that the MRTPC's order had infringed upon their right to control their signals, the Star and others had moved the apex court.

The Star submitted that Siti had switched over from terrestrial to HITS-based transmission and wanted to have complete control over the distribution of the channels. It was argued that when the Star did not have any agreement with the Siti Cable, how could it compel it to release the signals of the channels in the bouquet. And as a content provider, the Star must have the control over the signals and switch off the signals to the defaulters. But the Siti contended that these major channels after forming a cartel were planning to ease out other cable operators. The Star and others could not refuse the signals to the Siti Cable when they were prepared to release the signals for other operators.

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