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IMCL distributors to ensure feed to consumers: Tdsat

Indiantelevision.com Team

(12 May 2008 1:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal has ordered that four of the distributors of IndusInd Media & Communications Ltd must ensure that the IMCL feed reaches the subscribers at the earliest.

The order was issued after a hearing held here on 9 May.

This follows the submission of court commissioner Meet Malhotra's report to the Tdsat on the implementation of the tribunal's 24 April order on reconnecting IMCL's feed, which four of its major distributors in Mumbai had disconnected, having shifted over to a new MSO, Scod 18 on 12 April.

Malhotra, who had been asked to visit the premises of one of the distributors Sai Ganesh Enterprises and ensure that the court's order of reconnection is complied with, said in his report that so far as the input signal from IMCL is concerned, Sai Ganesh is receiving it from the MSO.

The Tdsat had issued this specific order on Sai Ganesh, after IMCL filed a complaint on 29 April that the former had caused contempt of court by not complying with the tribunal's 24 April order, whereas Sai Ganesh said it had done so.

To satisfy the court on the claims and counter claims, the tribunal had appointed Meet Malhotra as the commissioner to visit the premises of Sai Ganesh and see if the reconnection had taken place.

Malhotra however noted, keeping in view the logistical difficulties (for instance, the output cable flowing out of the seventh story of an apartment house and going all the way to the LCO/subscriber), he had no way to verify if the end subscriber is receiving the IMCL signals.

Malhotra had noted also that the original petition of IMCL did not mention the issue of reconnection of their feed to the actual subscriber and the order of the court appointing the commissioner had also not explicitly mentioned this.

The court, upon hearing the report of the commissioner, said that the distributors must ensure that the subscriber must get the actual IMCL feed.

However, before the order was issued, the defendants requested that the court may record their statement that it was impossible for them to ensure the actual subscriber getting the IMCL feed.

Finally, though the court did record that statement, it passed an order that the distributors must ensure that the actual subscriber, not just the distributor, gets the IMCL feed till the pendency of the case, which would decide whether the disconnection of IMCL feed and connecting the Scod 18 feed had been legally valid.