NEW DELHI: The supreme court has once again rejected an application by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) for staying the court proceedings in the Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh high courts.

Chief justice Altamis Kabir, justice Vikramjit Sen and justice S A Bobde fixed 8 July as the date for further hearing on the petition by the IBF challenging the orders in the Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh high courts.

It also listed along with these cases a petition by IBF against the multi-system operator Digicable.

Some more MSOs from Andhra Pradesh including Chalasani Narendra Varaprasad were allowed to be impleaded in the case.

The IBF petition seeks to ensure that digitization is implemented as scheduled and without hindrance.

When the special leave petition had been mentioned before the court on 16 April, it had declined the prayer to stay any of the proceedings in the various high courts as it was informed that the Karnataka high court judgment on the subject was due. The bench presided over by chief justice Altamas Kabir felt it would await the judgment of the high court before taking up the matter.

The Karanataka, Gujarat and Allahabad high courts have since dismissed as having no merit the petitions seeking extension of the switch-of dates for phase II of digitisation in Bengaluru, Mysore, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Agra, Allahabad, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut and Varanasi.

Petitions challenging digitisation are currently pending in the Madras, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh high courts. These affect the cities of Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam Bhopal, Indore, and Jabalpur.