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BECIL to audit Mumbai’s Home Systems, Star directed not to disconnect signals: TDSAT
NEW DELHI: The Broadcasting Engineering Consultants (India) Ltd (BECIL) has been directed to examine the headend of Mumbai’s Home Systems Pvt Ltd following a petition filed by it against Star India.
Telecom Disputes Settlement and Arbitration Tribunal (TDSAT) chairman Aftab Alam and members Kuldip Singh and B B Srivastava said BECIL will find out whether the Conditional Access System (CAS) and the Subscribers Management System (SMS) at the petitioner’s headend are properly integrated on the date of the audit.
It would also examine, on the basis of the historical data available in the system, whether the systems were properly integrated during the period April 2014 to November 2014, when the commercial audit was made by Star.
It will be open to the Star to submit to BECIL the report of its audit and the data collected from the Home System in course of the audit. Home Systems will bear the cost of the audit.
It is expected that the BECIL will submit its report to the Tribunal within four weeks and so the case has been listed for 6 November.
The petition had been filed by Home Systems against a disconnection notice issued by Star India based on non-payment of dues. The dues are under two heads – one relates to the licence fee and the other relates to the demand made by Star on the basis of a commercial audit of the petitioner’s headend. The licence fee dues as shown in the notice amount to Rs 56 lakh.
After the notice Home Systems paid a sum of Rs 27,37,690 and according to it, the licence fee dues upto 31 August amounts to Rs 26,74,536, apart from the fee for September.
According to Star, in course of audit it was found that at the petitioner’s headend the CAS and the SMS were not properly integrated and hence, the data generated by SNS was incorrect. Home Systems disputed this.
