NEW DELHI: Members of the New Malwa Cable Operator Sangh of Punjab has been asked by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal to sign the interconnect agreement with Fastway Transmission Pvt. Ltdwithin three weeks.

In his order of 11 August 2016, member B B Srivastava said that Fastway would be free to disconnect the signals to those local cable operators who do not follow the order and sign the agreement as stipulated by TRAI regulations.

The Tribunal described as “certainly not a happy state of affairs’ the statement by Fastway counsel G S Oberai that two lists of LCOs – the first list of 48 LCOs who have signed the agreement without postal registration andsecond list of 13 LCOs who have signed the agreement with stipulation recording "applied for postal registration".

The Tribunal said any agreement sans authentic postal registration cannot be termed as a valid document inaccordance with TRAI regulations. Oberai also submitted that 18 LCOs were yet to sign any agreement.

Oberai further submitted that of the three LCOs - Syan Cable Network, Billing Cable Network, and Chahal CableNetwork, only Chahal Cable Network had made updated payment of the subscription fee. He produced twostatement of accounts, according to which there is an outstanding of Rs 73,301.81 against Syan Cable Networkand Rs 68,885 against Billing Cable Network.

Listing the matter for 5 September, the Tribunal said this outstanding shall be liquidated by way of payment to therespondent within a period of 10 days, failing which the respondent would be free to disconnect signals tothese two cable networks - Billing Cable Network and Syan Cable Network.