The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Raj TV licence cancellation stayed

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Friday, Sep 03, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Raj TV licence cancellation stayed

By Karthik Subramanian

CHENNAI, SEPT. 2. The Madras High Court has granted an interim stay on an order calling for the termination of Raj Television Network's licence to uplink its channels from its own teleport.

The order was issued last month by the Wireless Planning and Coordination (WPC) wing, which comes under the Ministry of Telecommunications.

The interim stay, issued by Justice R. Balasubramanian on August 27, comes as a reprieve to Raj Network, which faced the prospect of having to look for a new gateway for uplinking its channels.

According to representatives of the channel, there are no gateways available in the country now.

Uplinking from abroad, apart from increasing the cost, will also require the Network to supply new decoders to its cable operators as its programming would be put through new encrypting technology. There will also be restrictions on current affairs programming.

Charges against the Network was that it had uplinked two channels, Raj Musix and Raj Vissa, without licences; that it had exceeded its allotted transponder bandwidth from 9 Megahertz to 18 Mhz; and that it had not renewed its uplinking licence for over a year.

In his affidavit, Raj Network's chairman and managing director M. Raajhendhran said they had applied for permission to uplink Raj Musix and Raj Vissa with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in May 2003 itself.

Subsequently, it was only at the insistence of the Ministry that the Network had increased its bandwidth to 18 Mhz.

After making the changes prescribed by the Ministry, Raj Network had submitted individual applications for the two channels in March this year. The two channels were being broadcast on a trial basis.

Show cause

On receiving a show cause notice from WPC in July, the network immediately discontinued the two channels. Mr. Raajhendran had written to WPC that the channels had satisfied all conditions for grant of the licence. He pleaded that there was no intentional violation on his part and requested that the licence to uplink channels not be cancelled.

The Raj Network chairman also said the company had paid its outstanding licence fee, including late penalty, of Rs. 3.16 lakhs by demand draft on July 29.

Mr. Raajhendhran said the punishment suggested for the alleged violations was too harsh.

In his petition, he said the Ministry ought to have considered the adverse effects, if any, of the alleged violation, the detriment to the nation or to its economy or to its security.

Mr. Raajhendhran told The Hindu that it was unfortunate that in the 10th year of its operation, the channel was being singled out for such "unfair treatment." He stressed he was not seeking a confrontationist approach and hoped to sort out the problems with the authorities.

Raj Network representatives said they hoped to get Raj Vissa and Raj Musix back on air soon.

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