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Pleas challenge govt ban on direct-to-home broadcasts

The Delhi high court on Tuesday issued notices to the ministries of communication, and information and broadcasting, besides others, asking them to file replies within three weeks on two petitions challenging the July 17 government notification promulgating a new set of radio and television rules.

The division bench comprising Justices A B Saharya and J B Goel directed the petitioners -- Centre for Media Studies, Rupert Murdoch's News Television (India) and Chandrashekhar Menon -- to file their rejoinders to the replies, if necessary, within a week thereafter but on or before August 28, the next date of hearing in the case.

Under the notification, the government had promulgated the new Radio, Television and Video Cassette Recorder Sets (Exemption from Licensing Requirements) Rules, 1997, substituting the Radio, Television and Video Cassette Recorder Sets (Exemption from Licensing Requirements) Rules, 1985, issued under Sections 4 and 7 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, and sections 4 and 10 of the Indian Wireless Telegraph Act, 1933.

As per the new rules, the government imposed a ban on the direct-to-home telecast on the KU-band transponder of the satellite, preventing telecast by foreign satellite channels in the country through this band.

Arguing the petition for News Television, senior counsel Kapil Sibal stated that although the government had the right to regulate the satellite channels, it could not prohibit private channels from entering the country through the KU-band.

"How can the security of the country be affected if the channels are on the KU-band when already so many foreign satellite networks are operating in the country on the C-band?'' he asked.

Sibal contended that without viewing the programmes one could not decide whether they would in any way affect the security of the country. If the government wanted, it could have a monitoring body set up to scrutinise the programmes on the channels proposed to be brought in the country by the petitioner and if found objectionable, those could be regulated, the counsel submitted.

"On the basis of the frequency, how can you judge that this frequency is dangerous for the security of the nation and the other is not? The programmes can be a security threat, but the frequency cannot,'' Sibal stated.

The petitioner, he said, was ready to give an undertaking in this regard in the court.

News Television had proposed to bring a 28-channel satellite network on the KU-band, including Sky News, Sky Movies, the Disney Channel, the Computer Channel and the History Channel, a move now jeopardised by the government's notification.

When the judges asked to differentiate between the C-band and the KU-band, Sibal contended that a KU-band would ensure higher frequency, better technology, more channels and better transmission.

On the basis of the earlier government's assurances, the petitioners had invested about US $300 million for setting up the network, Sibal said.

Refuting the contention, Additional Solicitor General A M Singhvi said, ''No sovereign country can allow an offshore television network, over which it has no control, to transmit its programmes uninhibited in the country.''

The judge remarked, ''The government counsel's contention that the petitioner had filed the suit because of some foreign forces behind him does not impress us as they are anyway going to operate in the country and we can have full control over them.''

Sibal said the Supreme Court had earlier stated that ''the government can regulate airways frequencies, but it cannot ban the entry of satellite channels altogether.''

In their petitions, the Centre for Media Studies and News Television (India) have urged the court to quash the notification as it is violative of Article 300(a) of the Constitution.

The petitioners said the notification was a complete abrogation of their right to carry on their business in the KU-band frequency services. The restrictions were neither reasonable nor in the public interest, they said.

UNI