NEW DELHI, May 7: The Delhi High Court today asked the Central Government as to why it was not either granting or rejecting the applications seeking licence to receive signals from satellites through Direct To Home (DTH) devices.

A Division Bench comprising Justice A B Sahrya and Justice S N Kapoor took exception to the stand of the government to sit over the applications made in accordance with law and not taking a decision.

The Bench asked the counsel for all the respondents, including Department of Telecom's counsel Rakesh Tiku, to tell within two weeks as to the status of the application by the petitioner Satish Thapar and also the reasons behind the action.

Petitioner's counsel Arun Jaitley contended that though the government framed a rule saying that those who wanted to receive signals direct from satellite over and above the frequency of 4800 mega hertz (mhz) would have to secure a licence, it seems to have developed a cold feet in granting licence.

Tiku said that government would soon bring a comprehensive draft Broadcasting Bill before the Parliament which would contain safeguards in granting licence to operate DTH device. Tiku further said that government was not averse to grant licences to operate DTH devices but was finding a way to have post-licence surveillance on the DTH operators as direct to home transmission might put our culture in jeopardy.

Warning about a cultural invasion, Tiku told the court, that the government was planning to bring in several safeguards in the draft Broadcasting Bill in this regard.

However, the Bench observed that nobody knows when and in what manner the Broadcasting Bill would come and said that ``government could not withhold granting of licence if the existing law provided that they have to be granted.''

Tiku said the notification providing for licence to operate DTH was not prohibitory in nature but was to prevent misuse.

Jaitley brought to the notice of the court the statement of information and broadcasting ministry categorically stating that no licence to operate dth would be granted unless the draft Broadcasting Bill was placed before Parliament.

The Bench asked Tiku as to what prevented the government from issuing a notification banning the use of DTH till the Broadcasting Bill was placed before Parliament.

Tiku said, ``little bit of application of mind at that time would have solved the problem'' and assured the court that he would get back with answers to the court queries on May 23.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.