Earlier, Tata Sky Limited filed a petition against the TRAI demanding level playing field and permission to telecast Gurbani.

Taking strong note of this, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Vijender Kumar Jain and Justice K S Ahluwalia expressed regret and shock over the commercialisation of Gurbani. Subsequently, the SGPC was also directed to file a reply and decide over the issue. After contemplating the issue, the SGPC has made it clear now that Gurbani will be made available at every platform, cable, DHS, Tata Sky, etc.

Meanwhile, advocate M S Rahi, an intervener and representing an NGO, contended that the SGPC has no right to enter into any commercial contract for Gurbani.

He submitted that the SGPC was not competent to enter into any type of contract with any body to sell Gurbani. “They are just trying to commercialise Gurbani and earn benefits out of it,” Rahi said.

The SGPC and the NGO have been directed to file an affidavit in this regard. On the other hand, Zee Turner, a party to the case submitted that level playing field will be given to Tata Sky shortly.

Earlier, notices were issued to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Limited (TRAI), ETC, Punjabi Channel, Zee Turner Limited and SGPC over the petition.

Tata Sky Limited had demanded directions from the court to TRAI to forthwith discharge its obligations under the TRAI Act to ensure level playing field including fixing context tariffs for Direct to Home (DTH) platform.

The petitioner had taken the stand that DTH is a fully addressable platform and is entitled to equal treatment at par with other addressable platforms such as CAS which is necessary to create competition.

DTH was conceived of as an alternate content delivery platform to offer and provide competition to the existing cable TV dominance.

It had been alleged that the TRAI has taken no steps to ensure that DTH services are able to co-exist with CAS/cable and are able to offer effective choice to a consumer.