'Not inclined to pass interim order staying NTO 3.0': Kerala HC to AIDCF

On Thursday, All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) petitioned the Kerala High Court against the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's tariff amendment - NTO 3.0, requesting a stay on the implementation of the same, which is said to come into effect from Feb 1, 2023.

In response, the court indicated that it's not inclined to pass any interim order staying the amendment and also declined to pass any order after hearing detailed arguments.
TRAI was represented by Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi who sought to dismiss AIDCF's writ petition. He argued that the amendments were carried out after detailed consultation with the stakeholders and after the Supreme Court upheld TRAI's authority in the matter.

The Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation (IBDF) represented by Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi supported TRAI's amendments and said that there's no case for stay on the amendments.

The court declined to pass an interim order and has listed the matter for February 8, 2023. It has also directed the parties to complete pleadings.

AIDCF has requested HC to issue directions to TRAI to examine and fix the maximum retail price for television channels genre-wise and with a maximum cap on the price of any channel in order to ensure the orderly growth of the digital cable television sector as mandated by the TRAI Act, 1997.

The federation has told the court that TRAI has failed to consider and address the foremost challenge faced by the entire broadcasting and cable services industry and that there is a trend of constant decline in subscribers base for MSOs and DTH operators. TRAI’s own data shows that in the last eight quarters the total active number of DTH subscribers has decreased from 70.99 million to 68.89 million. Similarly, the number of total active subscribers of major MSOs/HITS operators having more than a million subscribers has decreased from 47.58 million to 45.55 million.