AP HC Adjourns Digitization Case Hearing Moved To 29 April

Andhra Pradesh High court adjourned the hearing of petitions seeking extension of digitisation deadline in Hyderabad and Vishakhapatnam to 29 April 2013.

The interim order restraining MSOs from disconnecting analog signals continues in both the cities thus giving more time to MSO’s, LCO’s to seed as many homes as possible.

The High Court also directed the authorities not to penalize the MSO’s for transmission of analog signals.

According to figures published by the Ministry on 3 April, Hyderabad has 881,512 TV households of which 546,892 STBs had to be installed. Vishakhapatnam has 542,692 TV households, and 466,466 STBs had still to be installed.

The division bench headed by interim Chief Justice N.V. Ramana was hearing public interest litigation and five petitions including one filed by an MSO S V Krishna Mohan and another by the Greater Hyderabad Cable TV Operators Association.

The petitioner Chalasani Narendra filed the PIL saying the Union of India was 'scuttling the constitutional rights of the citizens by blocking out the TV Channels in the guise of implementation of Digital Addressability System (DAS) without making any efforts for easy availability of Set Top Boxes (STBs) in the market'.

He also alleged that the government is also trying to favor the big corporate establishments in the cable and DTH industry in the guise of DAS implementation.

Hathway Cable and Datacom also filed in a petition seeking no extension of deadline in the state.

The court was informed that the nodal officer who is Joint Collector in Hyderabad had written a note to the I & B ministry that only 30 to 40 per cent STBs have been seeded in the state and had sought an extension of three months.

The note said: 'As per the information submitted by the MSOs and cable operators approximately 3.4 million consumers are existing, out of which only 30 per cent to 40 per cent STBs are supplied leaving majority of them still waiting for supply of STBs.'

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2233-ap-hc-adjourns-digitization-case-hearing-moved-to-29-april.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2233-ap-hc-adjourns-digitization-case-hearing-moved-to-29-april.html