Don’t club free and paid channels, says High Court

Upholds TRAI regulations; concurs with dissenting judgment of the Chief Justice

May 24, 2018 01:41 am | Updated 01:41 am IST - CHENNAI

The Madras High Court on Wednesday upheld the validity of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) regulations which imposed curbs on offering television channels in bouquets containing a mix of pay channels and free to air channels instead of confining the bouquets to either pay channels or free channels.

Justice M.M. Sundresh, to whom the case was referred to due to a split verdict delivered by two judges of the first Division Bench, concurred with the view taken by Chief Justice Indira Banerjee, who held that the regulations would protect end consumers from getting misled or duped by inclusion of free channels in paid bouquets.

After differing with her companion judge who had allowed writ petitions filed by a couple of broadcasters and struck down the regulations on March 2, the Chief Justice had left it to Justice Huluvadi G. Ramesh, the senior most judge of the court, to nominate the third judge to whom the issue could be referred to.

Mr. Justice Ramesh nominated Mr. Justice Sundresh, who heard elaborate arguments advanced by a battery of Supreme Court-based senior counsel representing the broadcasters as well as Additional Solicitor-General G. Rajagopalan, representing the Centre, and senior counsel P. Wilson, appearing on behalf of TRAI, before reserving his verdict on April 26.

Division in the Bench

Opening the judgment in his inimitable style, the judge said: “A division in the Bench created this reference. Ironically, answering the reference would create a decision of the Division Bench. And if patience is a virtue, it could be stated to have well served upon hearing the submissions of eloquence of the learned counsel representing competing interests.” In so far as the merits of the case were concerned, the judge said the Chief Justice, in her short yet clear judgment, had rightly held that TRAI was well within its powers to issue the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services Interconnection (Addressable Systems) Regulations of 2017 and Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Eighth) (Addressable Systems) Tariff Order of 2017.

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