Chennai: The Madras high court on Friday set aside the cancellation of registration given to Kal Cables, the multi-system operator of the Sun TV group of the Maran brothers, as the Union government took the decision without giving opportunity of hearing to the MSO.
At the same time, his order would not stop the Centre from taking any action as per law, if on the basis of information on government files, action must be taken either against Kal Cables and/or against the TV channels of the group, Justice V. Ramasubramanian said in allowing the petitions from Kal Cables private limited challenging the cancellation of its registration.
He also said his order would not preclude the Centre from taking action about the manner in which the MSO got the government sanction on September 30, 2006, when one of the promoters (Dayanidhi Maran) was a Union minister, besides contemplating action on the circumstances under which the file relating to the registration sanction was kept back for seven years from 2006 to 2013 “without being forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs”.
The judge said the noting made by the Home Ministry officials in the file produced before him showed there were no adverse reports from the security point of view against the directors/key executives of the petitioner company.
“If the information available in the file about the alleged activities of the promoters of the petitioner company (Dayanidhi Maran and Kalanidhi Maran), is not considered to be a ground for invoking section 20 (2) of Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act against the Television channels promoted by the very same persons, I do not know how the same information would disentitle the petitioner from getting a security clearance just for the continuance of registration as a Multi System Operator, whose role is very very limited and smaller than that of a commercial Television channel”, he said.
