Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
G.D. GAIHA The petitioner is a Multi Service Operator, having its area of operation in the North-Eastern states including the State of Assam. It had entered into an agreement with the respondent on or about 29.5.2009, which was valid up to 31.3.2009, in terms whereof a sum of Rs.5,66,202.24 was payable towards supply of signals of various channels of the respondent. According to the respondent, however, the said purported agreement is a forged and fabricated document. The said agreement is alleged to have been signed by one Shri Tarun Saha, a partner of the petitioner, and a copy thereof is said to have been received by an employee of the respondent. The respondent contends that one Shri M.B. Narain signed the said agreement on behalf of the subscriber and the date of signing of the agreement is said to be 29.5.2009, but evidently there is an over-writing on the said date. 2. According to the petitioner, the channel known as ‘Ten Sports’ joined the network of the respondent...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
S.B. Sinha Introduction Interpretation of a provision contained in an Agreement dated 3.2.2006, is in question in this petition, wherein the petitioner inter alia has prayed for the following reliefs :- “A) Issue an injunction, order or direction or any other appropriate writ, order or direction quashing the demand notice dated 21.4.2010 and invoices dt. 9.9.2009 issued by Respondent no.1 B) Issue a direction that the obligation on part of the petitioner to pay rent for the CTI open/covered licensed infrastructure as per agreement dt. 7.2.2006 arose from 21.8.2009, i.e. the date of commencement of FM broadcast from the CTI facility. C) Award the costs of the instant petition to the petitioner.” Background Facts Pursuant to an invitation of offer issued by the Central Government to issue licenses for broadcasting FM radio in Phase II in September, 2005, the petitioner amongst others submitted its tender. The said invitation to tender inter alia contained the following condit...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
S.B. SINHA The petitioner has filed this petition being aggrieved by and dissatisfied with an order dated 18.02.2009 whereby and whereunder a corrigendum was issued directing it to pay a sum of Rs. 10 Crores in stead and in place of Rs.1 crore by way of modification of para 3 of the letter dated 11.12.2009 as well as paras 5 and 6 of the letter dated 25.02.2010 issued by the respondent herein, whereby and whereunder the petitioner had been asked to furnish a Performance Bank Guarantee for a sum of Rs.40 crores. 2. The basic fact of the matter is not in dispute. 3. The petitioner is a company incorporated and registered under the Companies Act. 4. It had applied for and was granted a licence by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting purported to be under Section 4 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (‘The Act’) to establish, maintain and operate an uplinking hub (Teleport) at Plot No.B-23-25, Pocket-C, Surajpur Industrial Area, Greater Noida in the State of Uttar Prades...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
S.B. Sinha The petitioner herein is a Multi Service Operator. Respondent is a content aggregator of the channels of several broadcasters. The parties hereto entered into an affiliation agreement on or about 13.09.2008. The said affiliation agreement, apart from the parties thereto was signed by one Kamal Agarwal, Manager of one Krishna Corporation, the then distributor of the respondents. Upon expiry of the said agreement, the parties entered into another agreement for which a validation form was filled up by the petitioner which was again witnessed by Shri Kamal Agarwal. On behalf of the respondent, one Shri. Vivek Sharma, Territory Manager had put his signature; whereas on behalf of the petitioner one of its directors Shri Ashok Agarawal who also examined himself as PW-I did so. Indisputably, the said validation form was entered into in respect of two bouquets of channels of which the respondent is the content aggregator. Bouquet-1 consisted of five channels; whereas bouquet-2 con...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
S.B. Sinha 1. The petitioner herein is a Multi Service Operator within the meaning of the provisions of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (The Act) and Cable TV Network Regulation Act, 1995 (the 1995 Act). 2. The respondent was a Local Cable Operator and at all material times used to take supply of signals of different channels of the broadcasters. 3. An agreement was entered into by and between the parties hereto, which was an oral one. For the said purpose, a customer form was signed by the parties (Petitioner No.2 and the Applicant) in terms whereof the later agreed to pay subscription charges for 100 subscribers at the rate of Rs.150/- per month per subscriber. 4. Despite availing the signals and receiving the invoices, according to the petitioner, the respondent has failed and/or neglected to pay the regular subscription charges totaling Rs.17,59,089/- as on 31.7.2009. 5. The petitioner contends that the respondent continued to avail receipt of cable signals ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
S.B. Sinha The petitioner is a Multi Service Operator. It had been operating its network in the town of Hoshangabad in the State of Madhya Pradesh. Since 2007 it is a distributor of TV channels of the respondent herein, which is a broadcaster. The petitioner at one point of time was the sole MSO operating in the said town Hoshangabad. Inter alia on the premise that in October, 2008, the respondent started supplying signals of its channels to one M/s Nidhi Enterprise for a sum of Rs.30,000/- p.m., it sought for reduction in its subscriber base and consequent reduction in the subscription fee. It had entered into an agreement with the respondent on or about 14.3.2008 on a subscription fee of Rs.3,09,900/- excluding tax and inclusive of tax comes to Rs.3,48,204/- The petitioner inter alia on the plea that it was entitled to down gradation and on the basis of a purported request from the respondent started depositing a sum of Rs.50,000/-per month. On the premise that the petitioner was...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
S.B. Sinha 1. Whether a multi service operator has a legal right to obtain an order from this Tribunal directing a broadcaster to supply signals to it on a voluntarily CAS basis is one of the questions which the petitioner raises in this petition. 2. The petitioner is a multi service operator having a PAN India presence. It is said to be the biggest multi service operators operating in the town of Pune in the State of Maharashtra. 3. It’s not in dispute that the respondent no. 2 which is a content aggregator was the distributor of TEN SPORTS, a sports channel. In the said capacity the respondent no. 2 entered into an agreement with the petitioner in the year 2005. It is furthermore not in dispute that from 2006 onwards the petitioner had not entered into a separate agreement with the respondent no. 2. It is moreover not in controversy that the petitioner fell in arrears in payment of subscription fee which, according to the respondents, was almost to the tune of Rs. 4.3 Crores. ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
S.B. SINHA INTRODUCTION Validity of an order/determination passed/issued by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) vis--vis the Regulations framed by it is in question in this petition. BACKGROUND FACTS 2. The first petitioner is an Association of Cellular Operators. Other petitioners were granted licences by the first respondent herein in terms of the provisions of Section 4 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (the1885 Act). 3. Indisputably, during the period in question namely 2001-2003, direct connectivity amongst the cellular operators was not permitted and calls used to be routed through the exchanges set up by the 1st respondent, which were succeeded by the respondent No.2, BSNL on its creation. For those calls, the operators used to collect a sum of Rs.1.20 from each of the subscribers for each call and pay the same to DoT/BSNL. 4. However, the operators were to incur some expenditures therefor i.e. namely for preparation and service of the bill, collection charges etc. Som...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
By an order dated 22.02.2011 while admitting this petition, we have refused to pass an order of interim injunction in favour of the petitioner herein. The reasons in support thereof now are being assigned. 2. The petitioner herein is a broadcaster. It entered into an agreement with the Respondent Nos. 1, 2 and 3 separately for carriage of its channels in their network. By reason of a notice dated 25.12.2010, the said agreement was sought to be terminated. 3. Mr. Bhatia, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner urged that from a perusal of the impugned notices, it would be evident that they are identical in nature and as such, there cannot be any doubt or dispute that the Respondent Nos. 1 to 4 herein were acting to cause loss to the petitioner conjointly and committed breach of the provisions of the agreement. The learned counsel would contend that keeping in view the conduct of the respondents, the only conclusion which can be arrived at, is that having regard to t...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal TDSAT
S.B. SINHA These two Review Applications involving identical questions of law and fact were taken up for hearing together and are being disposed of by this common judgment. The first respondent herein in each of the Review Applications has filed petitions before this Tribunal for recovery of the amounts specified therein from the Applicants as also the Respondent No.2 being Petition Nos. 245 (C) of 2009 and Petition No. 205 (C) of 2009. Whereas the former was allowed by a judgment and decree dated 23.11.2010; and the later by a judgment and order dated 04.02.2011. By reason of the said judgments, the Applicant and the Respondent No.2 were held jointly and severally liable to pay unto the first respondent the balance amount of placement charges as were said to be due to the original petitioners with interest @ 9% per annum with costs. 2. The Applicant is a producer of some channels. The Original Petitioner-Respondent No.1, which is a Multi Service Operator, was to place the said cha...
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