High Court issues notices to TRAI, I

New Delhi, Aug 30 (UNI) The High Court issued notices to the TRAI and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on a petition filed by a TV channel seeking directions to the authorities not to allow the cable operators in Delhi to charge carriage fees from them forcibly.

Justice G S Sistani issued the notices yesterday on the petition filed by Total TV.

Sunder Khatri, lawyer for the TV channel contended that the carriage fees charged by the cable operators, multi-system operators(MSO) and direct to home operators(DTH) and other distributors of channels, was illegal and unconstitutional.

He also cited one example, in which a cable operator in Lajpat Nagar was charging Rs 18 lakh for three months as disbursement fee from the TV channels, as he had over 5,000 connections in his area, he said.

This fee was being charged forcibly from the TV channels to relay their programmes on cable TV.

The High Court has given four weeks time to the respondents to file the reply.

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