Chennai, Aug 29: Madras High Court today issued notice to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and others on a petition seeking to stay implementation of a central notification enforcing the Conditional Access System in the city from September one. Admitting a petition filed by a city cable TV subscriber K Surendra Kumar, Justice K Govindarajan issued notice to the I & B Ministry and two cable TV companies. Stating that the notification, issued on July 7 last, also covered the three metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, the petitioner pointed out that for some extraneous reasons its implementation was deferred in Delhi and Mumbai while it was not to be implemented in Kolkata for unknown reasons. Claiming that the basic requirements for the CAS was yet to be put in place, he contended that neither the CTO or multi-system operator had fixed or published the sale or rental rates for set-top boxes, which were not even available in the market. The petitioner contended that if the Centre's notification came into force, city viewers would be denied of access to all pay channels from September one.

Bureau Report