Star TV seeks impleadment in CAS petition

New Delhi, Dec 1 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today issued notices to the Union Government and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the petition of the Star TV network seeking impleadment in the petition filed by Hathway Cables for implementation of onditional Access System (CAS) in the metropolis.

A Division bench of the High Court asked the respondents to file their replies by December 13, the next date of hearing.

The Centre had submitted earlier that it would need some more months to implement CAS in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

The Centre in its plea had said that numerous obligations have to be carried out with the broadcaster, multi-service cable operators (MSOs), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in consultation with respective state governments to implement CAS.

The consumers would not be able to shift to CAS within a short period which would lead to utter confusion and chaos as there was no consensus on subscription charges, bifurcation of free to air and pay channels, and their pricing and availability of set top boxes, the appeal stated.

According to the government, the implementation of CAS was not solely dependent on it as it had just a facilitative role to play in terms of issuing relevant notifications relating to setting out of legal obligations on its implementation.

Implementation of CAS on the prescribed date would lead to complete blackout of all pay channels as neither the broadcasters would be in a position to broadcast their individual pay channels nor MSOs and local cable operators would be able to retransmit them to the consumers, it stated, adding "this would be injurious to the interests of consumers for whom CAS has been designed..." According to the appeal, the I&B ministry was holding regular meetings with all the stakeholders to arrive at a modified scheme which was acceptable to all and capable of being implemented on ground.

UNI PAT VA HS1642