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Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) submitted to the Delhi High Court
today that it has initiated a dialogue with the industry stakeholders on issues
related to CAS, which would take a few months time to complete and some consensus
arrived at. However,
the court was critical of such pleas and fixed the next date of hearing for 19
July. On
the arguments forwarded by the government for more time, the court said the maximum
that could be given is 90 days as authorities have already consumed considerable
time in carrying out an earlier order of the court. On
10 March, the Delhi HC had directed the information and broadcasting ministry
to roll out CAS in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai within a month’s time. The
court observed that if the government is unable to sort out CAS matters, then
it could also explore the possibility of going ahead with the rollout based on
the Chennai model. Chennai
is the only city in India where CAS has been rolled out and running smoothly since
2003. A
clutch of MSOs, including Hathway and INCablenet, had filed a case against the
government on CAS in the Delhi High Court late 2004, alleging that keeping addressability
in abeyance had resulted in financial losses to the petitioners. In
the representation made before the court today, the petitioners alluded to the
possibility of the government having plans to do away with mandated CAS
completely. In this regard they made references to the relevant sections from
the draft Broadcast Bill 2006, which is currently being circulated amongst government
organisations for further feedback. When
the government counsel expressed his ignorance of a draft Broadcast Bill, leave
alone plans of junking CAS by making it voluntary, the counsel for the petitioners
furnished a section of the draft Bill in the court. Also
Read: Delhi
HC orders Government to implement CAS within four weeks
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