(29 April 2008 8:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: In what is being talked about as a rare step from the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal, the sector tribunal today appointed senior lawyer Meet Malhotra to visit the premises of Sai Ganesh Enterprise, Mumbai, to ensure that the order to reconnect IndusInd Media & Communications' (IMCL) signals is implemented.

Senior lawyer Meet Malhotra has been appointed as court commissioner and he has to get the order implemented by 8 May.

The tribunal was hearing the IMCL case in which the latter claimed that four of its distributors - one being Sai Ganesh - had illegally switched off the MSO's (multi-system operator) feed to replace it with Scod 18's signals.

On 24 April, Tdsat had given an interim order that the disconnections were prima facie illegal as no valid notice had been issued, and ordered the four distributors to reconnect immediately.

IMCL today said that though the tribunal had ordered in the interim that the distributors reconnect, Sai Ganesh had not complied with it.

IMCL had filed two pleas, the first being the appointment of a court commissioner; and second, a contempt petition against Sai Ganesh.

In the tribunal today, IMCL counsel Kailash Vasudev stated that the distributor had not complied with the order, but was contested by Sai Ganesh counsel Navin Chawla, who said that in fact, the order had been complied with it and there was video evidence of it.

Chawla, in fact, said that IMCL was not being correct and instead of a contempt petition against Sai Ganesh, the tribunal ought to proceed against IMCL.

To this, Hinduja Ventures President (Corporate) Ashok Mansukhani said on behalf of IMCL that the defendant was only revealing this evidence to the tribunal now, and IMCL had not been made aware of it earlier.

Mansukhani said that, in fact, had reconnection actually taken place, IMCL would not have filed the contempt petition.

Mansukhani said also that the footage was vague and the audio statement of the so called IMCL officer was not clear an unintelligible, and told the tribunal that till the time of hearing the arguments today, reconnection had not taken place.

Tdsat then ordered that Malhotra, a former senior counsel for Telecom Regulation Authority of India, be appointed court commissioner, and that he should visit the Sai Ganesh premises and ensure that the order of reconnection is implemented.

The tribunal ordered the two parties to bear the expenses of the court commissioner's tour of Mumbai and jointly pay his fee of Rs 100,000.

The order has to be implemented before 8 May by Malhotra and he would have to report back to the tribunal by then. The next hearing would be held on 9 May.

The court thus took up the first plea of IMCL, but held back arguments on the contempt petition for the next hearing.

Lawyers and senior government officials have remarked that though appointing court commissioners is a common practice in civil cases, so far as the Tdsat is concerned this is just one rare case when this has been done.