Broadcasters move Delhi HC against deadline extension

NEW DELHI: Broadcasters including Star India, Zee News Ltd and Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) have filed a petition in the Delhi High Court on 18 July 2012, challenging the extension of digitisation deadline from to 1 November in the four Metros. The petitioners have contended that the Government did not have mandate to order an extension under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2011.

Hearing the petitioners, the Delhi High Court has issued notice to the government of India and I&B Ministry, seeking responses by 6 August.

It may be recalled that on 20 June 2012, due to slow progress of implementation of digital addressable systems (DAS), availability of STBs and slow response from the consumers, Ministry had extended the June 30 deadline of analogue switch-off in the four metros to 1 November 2012.

Although some MSOs had assured the government of completing the process by 30 June, Ministry was shocked to find that STB penetration in June was less than 25 % in the four metros of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.

Also, the Government admitted in its order that the regulations issued by the TRAI on Tariff & Interconnection, Quality of Service and the Consumer Complaint Redressal had not been substantially implemented. This had resulted in the slow pick up of set-top-boxes (STBs) and the completion of the process of digitisation could not be completed by 30 June.

Under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2011, it had been mandated that the switchover of the existing analogue cable networks to DAS should be completed by December 2014, in a phased manner. In respect of the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, the digital switchover was mandated to come into effect from 1 July 2012.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/cable-news/item/345-broadcasters-move-delhi-hc-against-deadline-extension.html