NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has put the federal government in a tight spot over the rollout of conditional access system (CAS) in the country by refusing to grant it any further time.
However, the Delhi High Court, hearing a petition filed by a multi-system operator, reserved a final order, saying ‘‘the court would pronounce its judgement in the matter.''
As directed earlier, information and broadcasting Secretary S K Arora today appeared before the court and sought three months time to implement CAS in the country. The request was rejected by Justice Vikramjit Sen, a news agency has reported.
Petitioner Hathway Cable Datacom’s counsel Indu Malhotra submitted that the government was only buying time to delay the implementation of the CAS.
Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra, who appeared for the government, had submitted that the issue of CAS had been decided by another division bench of the High Court in December 2003.
Justice Sen had said there was no problem in giving another judgement as the situation was different. The judge had reserved his verdict in September 2005 on Hathway Cable Datacom's petition seeking direction to the central government to implement CAS.
The petitioner, through its counsels, has argued that it had incurred a huge loss by manufacturing instruments for CAS after the notification for the implementation of the technology in the country in 2003.