The Hindu : High Court stays CAS suspension

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 05, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

High Court stays CAS suspension

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, MARCH 4. A Central Government notification, `indefinitely suspending' the Conditional Access System, was stayed by the Madras High Court today.

Justice K. Ravirajapandian granted the interim stay on the February 27 notification, after admitting four petitions filed by Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV), a unit of the Sun TV group, the Cable TV Operators Welfare Association of Tamil Nadu and two others.

According to counsel for the petitioners, P.S. Raman, the SCV invested about Rs. 10 crores in arranging for special digital head end control rooms, conditional access system controls and subscriber management systems, apart from importing thousands of set-top boxes (STBs) and smart cards. "If the CAS is suspended now, consumers will stop paying for the rented STBs and return the boxes."

Claiming that lakhs of consumers in Chennai were content with the free-to-air channels, available for Rs. 72 a month, the petition said suspending the scheme at this stage would put the burden of heavy monthly subscription on viewers, besides infringing the legitimate expectations of the multisystem operators (MSOs) such as the SCV. The CAS was withdrawn without consulting the MSOs, who were forced by the Government to make huge investments and were given "false inducements that the regime was here to stay." The MSOs were not given any option in implementation of the CAS, which was mandatory under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act. Non-implementation of the CAS was a cognisable offence.

`Subscriber made a guinea pig'

Faulting the Centre for "unilaterally withdrawing the scheme in an arbitrary manner," the petitioners said the worst-affected would be the average susbcriber, who was made a "guinea pig in the entire matter."

The petition also expressed surprise at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, which had little experience in the cable industry, coming out with the impugned interim recommendation to suspend the scheme, which was formulated after a detailed study by experts groups and a task force.

In its petition, the operators' association said if the CAS was suspended and the set-top boxes became irrelevant, the subscribers would "directly confront only the local cable operators for rendering their investment useless."

While the CAS regime has been in operation in Chennai since September 1, 2003, it has been implemented since January 2004 in South Delhi. All four petitioners sought to declare the impugned notification null and void. As an interim relief they sought a stay on the operation of the February 27 notification suspending the CAS in Chennai and South Delhi.

Multisystem operators and cable operators in the city welcomed the court decision. The sudden withdrawal of the CAS stirred up a hornets' nest and led to confusion, as the rates for channels had not been fixed. The rates threatened to go up to Rs. 300 and above, putting the system out of reach of most TV watchers, the cable operators said.

"A resident who does not have a set-top box would have been forced to pay for channels he did not want to watch. That was the primary disadvantage with withdrawing the CAS and was against the public interest," a representative of an MSO said.

Viewers can continue to pay Rs.72 plus taxes for free-to-air channels and those with set-top boxes the same rates for the bouquets they selected, the cable operators said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu