HC dismissed PIL seeking MSO licence to State owned Cable Corp

Chennai, Feb 28 (UNI) The Division Bench of the Madras High Court today dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking Centre's direction to grant Multi System Operator (MSO) licence to State-owned Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation.

The Division Bench comprising Justices S J Mukhopadhaya and M Venugopal, while dissmissing the petition, observed that the petitioner had no locus standi to file the PIL.

Gajapathi of Chennai, a social worker, said in his petition that the State-owned cable TV Corporation had applied to the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for licence to function as MSO in Chennai, and as the same was still pending before the Ministry, the petitioner sought direction to the Centre to grant licence to the Stateowned Corporation to function as MSO.

While dismissing the petition, the bench said the question of whether MSO licence being granted in favour of one or other party, including the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation, had nothing to do with the public interest. The writ petition was not maintainable under the caption of the PIL.

If the Corporation has any grievance against any of the authorities that the MSO licence is not granted to it, the Corporation may move before the appropriate forum, the bench pointed out.

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