The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside an interim order of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission directing Star, Sony and ESPN to provide the signals of their satellite channels to Siti Cable, which has switched over to headends-in-the-sky-based transmission from the terrestrial mode.
However, the court directed the three broadcasters to provide Siti Cable the signals of the channels on the terrestrial mode till the MRTPC decided on the main dispute.
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Allowing the appeals filed by the major channels, a bench comprising Justice N Santosh Hegde and Justice B P Singh said that whether Siti Cable would be entitled to use the HITS-based transmission, for which the cable networking company had spent nearly Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) to purchase equipments, would be decided by MRTPC.
The MRTPC order was passed on August 27 on an application by Siti, which expressed apprehension that these major channels, after forming a cartel, were planning to ease it out from cable operation business by denying it the contents of the most popular channels.
The MRTPC had directed the three major satellite channel broadcasters to give uninterrupted supply of signals to Siti till September 10 when it would hear the cable network operators' plea.
The petitioners had said that the MRTPC order infringed their right to control their signals as Siti has changed over from terrestrial to HITS-based transmission.