The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed Star India?s petition challenging Telecom Regulatory Authority of India?s ( Trai) authority to regulate the broadcasting sector as well.
The apex court dismissed the appeal even without accepting it. Star India TV and Set Discovery had challenged the Delhi High Court?s decision, which upheld the powers of the telecom regulator to regulate the broadcasting sector.
A bench comprising Justice HK Sema and Justice Markandey Katju, after hearing the contention of Star India, said there was ?no conflict? in allowing the telecom regulator to regulate broadcasting services.
Star India had challenged the judgement of the Delhi High Court, stating that the legislative amendment to bring broadcasting sector under the purview of the Trai
Act was bad in law. Fali
S Nariman appeared on behalf of the Star Group. The Delhi High Court in its judgement had ruled that Trai had the powers to regulate the broadcasting sector, to prescribe the tariffs at which the services are to be offered to the consumers.
The High Court had also ruled that an earlier judgement of the Delhi High Court which had expressed that Trai had no powers to override the terms and conditions of contracts between the service providers while fixing terms and conditions of interconnectivity between them, is not valid after the amendment of the Trai Act 2000, clearly saying that the regulator now possessed the power to fix the terms and conditions of interconnectivity between the service providers.