HARIKA CABLE VISION Vs. MAA TELEVISION NETWORK LTD.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, Harika Cable Vision (Harika), is a multi -system operator. It has filed this petition against the respondent, MAA Television Network (MAA), which is a broadcaster, seeking a direction to it to renew its interconnect agreement with the petitioner for Tenali area and also to supply its signals to the petitioner for retransmission in the area of Guntur Mandal, by entering into a fresh agreement for Guntur area.

(2.) HARIKA has been trying to get the signals of MAA in the area of Guntur since 2010 and this is the third round of litigation in that connection. It first filed petition No. 401(C) of 2010 seeking the signals of MAA for the areas of Chebrolu and Guntur Mandals. That petition was disposed of by order dated 27 July 2011 in the following terms:

(3.) THE negotiations, as directed by the Tribunal, did not yield any favourable result for Harika and it once again came to the Tribunal in petition No. 523(C) of 2011. In this proceeding, the Tribunal found that Harika had supplied a list of five cable operators to MAA and had also submitted copies of the letters given to Harika by those cable operators stating that, at that time, they did not have any pay channels and they were willing to take signals from Harika. The Tribunal, however, noted that the petitioner had not produced any evidence to prove those documents and hence, the documents submitted by the petitioner could not be relied upon. On the other hand, MAA had stated that those cable operators were already getting its signals from other multi -system operators. The Tribunal observed that MAA had been able to prove its case by leading cogent evidence which clearly showed that the cable operators in question were already getting MAA's signals from another multi -system operator. The Tribunal thus found and held that Harika had failed to fulfill the conditions as required under clause 9.2 of the Interconnect Regulations 2004 for seeking signals for the first time. It, accordingly, dismissed Harika's petition by judgment and order dated 9 October 2012.