Broadcast tribunal TDSAT on Wednesday dismissed petitions of two Zee group firms Dish TV and WWIL seeking signals to operationalise HITS platform, while coming down heavily on the government for not bringing proper guidelines for its implementation.
The TDSAT bench headed by Justice Arun Kumar observed that since the ministry of information and broadcasting has not amended or issued fresh downlinking guidelines to accommodate Headend-In-The-Sky on the lines of Direct-to-Home and Multi-system operators, so it could not pass any order regarding it.
HITS is a mode of delivering channels through a satellite multiplex service that enables customers to pick and choose channels as in CAS system.
Observing that the MIB failed to bring clarification on it, the bench said: "What follows from this is that petitioners (Zee group) may be ready to roll out HITS platform, but the MIB is not ready to give permission to broadcasters to provide content to HITS licensees."
Criticising the government for the delay, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal said: "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," it added.
The bench said TRAI as well as the government have shown keenness that HITS technology should be operationalised but "this keenness remains only on paper (and) till the guidelines are amended or the government issues authoritative instructions that providing signals by broadcasters to HITS operators would not be taken as violation of the existing guidelines."