NEW DELHI: Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat) has in its judgment in the case between Dish TV and Star Den and MSM Discovery has dismissed Dish TV’s petition over signals being made available to the licencee of Headend-in-the-Sky (Hits) platforms on the ground of non-availability of uplinking and downlinking guidelines for Hits platforms.

According to the existing uplinking and downlinking guidelines, a broadcaster can only supply signals or content to registered MSOs, cable operators and direct-to-home (DTH) operators.

In his order, Tdsat Justice Arun Kumar blamed the government for not taking sufficient action on upgrading Hits policies, “I fail to understand why the government is dithering on issuing clear guidelines to allay the apprehensions of broadcasters. The broadcasters today apprehend that in view of the existing guidelines if they provide signals or content to the Hits platform, they will be violating the existing guidelines because the existing guidelines permit supply of signals or content only to registered MSOs and cable operators and to the DTH platform. It is high time that the government immediately takes a decision on this aspect in consumer interest. We all talk of consumer interest and say that consumer interest comes first. But this has remained a mere slogan. In reality nobody appears to be bothered about consumer interest.”

When contacted, Essel corporate executive vice president Arvind Mohan said, “Though the broadcast tribunal had dismissed our petition at the same time it has criticised the government for not clearing the Hits policy. We would now send the copy of the judgment to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting so that the matter could be resolved as soon as possible because in the Hits case the policy is the only major issue. And once this gets sorted, I am sure we will witness a faster roll-out of Hits.”