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Informist, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation and other parties to challenge tariff orders regarding the offering of channels by broadcasters in the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal. The court said that Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation's challenge to Regulation 6(a) of the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services Interconnection (Addressable Systems) Regulations, 2017 could come at a later stage to them.

 

Through a tariff order in July, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had imposed a condition on the broadcasters that in case they offered a channel to public service broadcaster Prasar Bharti on the latter's DD Free Dish platform, the same channel cannot be a "pay channel" and has to be a mandatory "free to air" to all private distribution platform operators with addressable systems. 

 

The order had made it permissible for a broadcaster to offer its pay channels in the form of a bouquet and declare the maximum retail price, per month, of such bouquet payable by a subscriber. A provision in the order stated that such a bouquet shall not contain any free-to-air channel.

 

The petitioner said that the tariff order restricts the ability of the broadcasters to provision the signals of their pay channels to Prasar Bharati, thereby impinging upon their fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution. On account of the restriction, a broadcaster would be compelled to categorise its channel as free to air if it intends to provide the same channel to the DD Free Dish, the petitioner said.

 

Further, Regulation 6(a) relates to compulsory offering of channels on "a-la-carte" (separate prices) basis by every broadcaster. The regulation said that such a bouquet should not contain any free-to-air channel. The petitioner had challenged this regulation and tariff order in the Kerala High Court and had sought a combined hearing. However, the high court had said that it could not hear the challenge against the regulation, as it was already upheld by the apex court in 2019. The high court allowed the petitioner to move the appellate tribunal to challenge the tariff order. Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation, Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd., Star India Pvt. Ltd. and other parties moved the apex court against the high court order.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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