Gujarat HC Dismisses Petitions Seeking DAS Extension

The Gujarat High Court rejected on 16 April a bunch of petitions demanding extension of the deadline for compulsory use of STBs for television broadcast in the four cities by six months. The deadline ended on March 31 but, it was stayed by the court till 16 April since the petitions were pending.

As part of its policy, the Central government has notified the mandatory use of STBs in the country in a phased manner. Four major cities of Gujarat — Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot — fell in the second phase of the policy implementation for which the deadline was March 31.    

Cable operators had moved the HC with a plea to extend the deadline by six months on the grounds that there were not adequate STBs in the market and that the Central government had anyways extended the deadline in the four metro cities of country who fell in the first phase of the policy implementation.

Assistant Solicitor General Pankaj Champaneri, who appeared for the Central government in the matter, said the court rejected all the major contentions of the petitioners. "The court has observed that the cities falling in the second phase of the policy implementation had enough time to comply with the notification which was issued in November 2011," Champaneri said.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2199-gujarat-hc-dismisses-petitions-seeking-das-extension.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2199-gujarat-hc-dismisses-petitions-seeking-das-extension.html