NEW DELHI: Final hearing commenced in the petition by Star India and Vijay TV challenging the jurisdiction of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to issue tariff orders on the ground that content came under the Copyright Act.
Although the Supreme Court had in early May while staying the tariff order directed the Madras High Court to complete hearing within four weeks, the high court had earlier this month listed matter to come up for today.
Heeding the directive of the apex court to hear the matter on a day-to-day basis, the hearing which commenced today will continue for another two or three days until it is concluded.
The hearing in the court was today confined to hearing the counsel for Star India who is expected to continue tomorrow as well. This will be followed by counsel of the TRAI and the Union of India.
Meanwhile, TRAI TV reference interconnect offer (RIO) and Quality of service order (QoS) came into effect from 2 May following the order of the High Court.
Although the high court chief justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar had listed the matter for 12 June, it issued directions before that date that the matter would come up today (on Tuesday).
In the hearing in April-end, it had said Section 3 of the Tariff order and all other consequences of such implementation/enforcement would be subject to the outcome of the main petition.
Apart from the Tariff order which had originally been issued on 10 October last year, the regulator also issued the DAS Interconnect Regulations which had been issued on 14 October last year, and the Standards of Quality of Service and Consumer Protection (Digital Addressable Systems) Regulations which had been issued on 10 October last year.
The orders can be seen at:
http://trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/Tariff_Order_English_3%20March_20...
http://www.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/QOS_Regulation_03_03_2017.pdf
http://www.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/Interconnection_Regulation_03...
Also Read:
Decks cleared for TRAI tariff order implementation as HC declines stay (updated)
Star India case questioning TRAI jurisdiction over content postponed
