I&B Ministry
Law ministry to give opinion on CAS Bill
NEW DELHI: The information and broadcasting ministry is understood to have sought the advice and opinion of the law ministry on conditional access system and whether an ordinance is feasible at this point of time.
According to government sources, an opinion from the I&B ministry has been certainly sought, but whether that will lead to an Ordinance (an executive order) cannot be said at this point of time.
What the sources did admit is that the clarifications sought from the law ministry do revolve round at least one fact: what will be the status of CAS if the DTH regime comes into effect and somebody starts a KU-band DTH service in India?
The I&B ministry is also looking into the issue of set-top-boxes (STBs) as and when CAS is implemented as also what would be the fate of STBs in a DTH regime.
It is learnt that some technical experts have opined that if the DTH regime comes through, CAS may become redundant or its value may diminish as the cable subscribers won’t be prone to investing in two STBs for a TV service.
Though at this point of time, an ordinance on CAS looks unlikely, ministry sources did hint that I&B minister Sushma Swaraj is still keen on bringing about CAS even before the next session of parliament starts.
But to do this, the government will have to convince the President, who promulgates an ordinance, that CAS is of national importance and a piece of law cannot wait till the next session of parliament.
The government sources also indicated that the law ministry might give its opinion on the matter by the end of this week or early next week.
The amendments to the Cable TV (Networks) regulation Act, 1995, which would facilitate implementation of CAS, has been okayed by the lower house of the Indian parliament (Lok sabha), but a green signal from the Upper House (Rajya sabha) could not be obtained during the recently concluded monsoon session of parliament because of opposition from the Opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha. So much so that the I&B ministry had to get the Cable TV Regulation Amendment Bill 2002 delisted from the agenda of RS sometime during the middle of the parliament session because of the demand from the Opposition that it wanted a thorough debate on the issue of CAS before it gives it okay to the amendments.
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.
