I&B Ministry
If govt. wants ordinance on CAS, it will have to convince President
NEW DELHI: With the adjournment of the Indian Parliament sine die today, the fate of conditional access system becomes that much more nebulous. Though, some government officials told indiantelevision.com this afternoon that the information and broadcasting ministry may take the Ordinance route to bring about the implementation of CAS.
I&B minister Sushma Swaraj had got the cable TV Networks Amendment Bill 2002 first listed in the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of Parliament) towards the beginning of this session, but had got it delisted as Opposition in the Rajya Sabha had wanted a thorough debate on the issue.
The Lok Sabha (Lower House) has already okayed the amendments to the CATV Act, 1995 through a voice vote which aims at facilitating the implementation of CAS and bring about addressability in Indian cable TV homes.
Government officials said that an Ordinance (an executive order) is a plausibility, but the government has to convince the President that the issue of CAS is of national importance and cannot wait for Parliament to pass it in the winter session. The adjournment of Parliament sine die, ahead of the scheduled date of 14 August, came about as for the past few days no business had been transacted in Parliament with the Opposition in both the Houses resorting to boycott and demanding petroleum minister Ram Naik’s resignation after irregularities in the petrol pumps and kerosene depot allotment came to light sometime back.
Even if the government promulgates an Ordinance on CAS, it has to be okayed by Parliament in the next session or it lapses six months after its promulgation.
But the Ordinance has to wait a little also if that is the route the government opts to take. The President of India is scheduled to tour the state of Gujarat over the next 10 days and may not have time to study the issue immediately.
The broadcasting industry, which was not much in favour of CAS implementation immediately, can breathe easier now, while the cable industry and set-top box manufacturers, pushing for CAS, may have to wait a while.
See earlier headline:
CAS still stuck as RS adjourned sine die, govt. examining ordinance route
I&B Ministry
India turns up the heat on piracy, orders Telegram to axe 3,142 channels and blocks 800 websites
New legal teeth, nodal officers and notices to intermediaries signal that the government is done playing nice with copyright thieves
NEW DELHI: India’s war on film piracy just got significantly more aggressive. The government has ordered Telegram to remove 3,142 channels distributing pirated content, blocked access to around 800 websites through internet service providers, and put the full weight of freshly sharpened legislation behind the crackdown. The message from New Delhi is unambiguous: the free ride for copyright thieves is over.
Minister of state for information and broadcasting L. Murugan spelled out the legal architecture to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 2023, he said, now contains specific provisions designed to make piracy a genuinely painful proposition. Sections 6AA and 6AB prohibit unauthorised recording and transmission of films, with violations attracting a minimum of three months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 3 lakh. At the upper end, offenders face three years behind bars and fines of up to 5 per cent of a film’s audited gross production cost — a figure that, for a big-budget production, could run into crores.
The legislation also gives the government powers to act against intermediaries hosting infringing content, by notifying them under Section 79(3) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and compelling takedowns and blocking actions. Under Section 79(3)(b), intermediaries are legally required to remove or disable access to unlawful content upon receiving government notice or court orders. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, add a further layer of obligation, requiring platforms to ensure their services are not used to host or distribute content that violates copyright or proprietary rights.
To put enforcement into practice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has established a dedicated institutional mechanism, complete with nodal officers to receive complaints. Copyright holders, authorised representatives or individuals can report piracy through a prescribed format, after which the government issues notices to intermediaries to disable access to infringing links.
The most headline-grabbing action came on 11 March 2026, when Telegram was formally notified under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and directed to remove and disable 3,142 channels found to be distributing unauthorised content belonging to OTT platforms, content owners and producers. The complaints that triggered the action came from OTT platforms including JioCinema and Amazon Prime Video, which alleged that copyrighted films, web series and other material were being shared on the platform on a massive scale. Telegram’s architecture, with its large file-sharing limits and capacity for user anonymity, has made it a favoured vehicle for exactly this kind of large-scale piracy.
The Telegram action sits within a broader pattern of escalating enforcement. Just days before the Lok Sabha statement, the ministry banned five OTT platforms for streaming obscene content: MoodXVIP, Koyal Playpro, Digi Movieplex, Feel and Jugnu. In July 2025, the Centre ordered the blocking of 25 OTT platforms accused of streaming obscene, vulgar or pornographic material, a list that included ALTT, ULLU, Big Shots App, Desiflix, Boomex, Navarasa Lite, Gulab App, Kangan App, Bull App, Jalva App, ShowHit, Wow Entertainment, Look Entertainment, Hitprime, Feneo, ShowX, Sol Talkies, Adda TV, HotX VIP, Hulchul App, MoodX, NeonX VIP, Fugi, Mojflix and Triflicks.
Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, provides the regulatory hook for those actions, prohibiting platforms from hosting content that is obscene, pornographic, invasive of privacy, gender-harassing, racially or ethnically objectionable, or that promotes hatred and violence.
For an industry that loses billions of rupees annually to piracy, the direction of travel is welcome. The question, as always, is not whether the laws exist, but whether the enforcement machinery can keep pace with the ingenuity of those determined to circumvent it. Three thousand channels down, and the pirates are already busy opening three thousand more.
