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Arb.Appln.Nos.280 & 281 of 2022 in O.A.Nos.740  and 741of 2022 KRISHNAN RAMASAMY, J., These applications have been moved by the applicant, Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation Ltd., (in short, TACTV), seeking to direct the respondents to hand over the materials, that have been specifically mentioned in the Judge’s summons mentioned therein. The learned Addl.Advocate General j ravinthiren appearing for the applicant would submit that the respondent has interfered with the functioning of the CAS servers and also with the licence key and thus, stopping the

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Arb.Appln.Nos.280 & 281 of 2022 in

O.A.Nos.740  and 741of 2022

KRISHNAN RAMASAMY, J.,

These applications have been moved by the applicant, Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation Ltd., (in short, TACTV), seeking to direct the respondents to hand over the materials, that have been specifically mentioned in the Judge’s summons mentioned therein.

  1. The learned Addl.Advocate General appearing for the applicant would submit that the respondent has interfered with the functioning of the CAS servers and also with the licence key and thus, stopping the EMM and ECM signals on and off. However, pursuant to the interim injunction granted in OA Nos.740 & 741 of 2022, the services have been restored. He would further submit that  the License of one of the CAS server, CAS ECM Server 1 (192.168.10.2) being a perpetual one, has become non-functional thereby causing disruption of services to more than 20,000 customers and this would force the end customers to switch over to other cable operators thereby causing great revenue loss to the Corporation. The SMS server has also become inaccessible and the disruption of license leading to disruption of services also tantamount to interfering with TACTV services to the customers leading to noncompliance of the Order of this Court. He would further submit that since the vendors have misused the access granted to them and caused large scale disruption of TACTV’s cable TV services from 19.11.2022 to 22.11.2022 affecting more than 20 lakh subscribers, after the intervention of this Court by the interim injunction, TACT was able to restore the services. Hence, he would point out that any further granting of access to the vendors for the servers of TACTV will enable the vendors to do more mischief by further tampering of the software, servers and set top box, thus, TACTV wants to avoid such a possibility in the interest of the public at large. Therefore, he would submit that the licence key already provided to the vendor may be directed to handover the same to the applicant so that the TACTV can directly provide services to the customers.
  2. On the other hand, the learned counsel appearing for the respondent would submit that the disruption that had occurred on 19.11.2022 was not due to the fault on the part of the respondent, but due to the fault of Chinese’s partner, who had no tie-up with TACTV. Therefore, he would contend that for no fault of the respondent, interruption was caused and they have been providing service for the past five years without any issues and only, the applicant TACTV has been making attempts to terminate the services provided to the respondent under the pretext of misuse by the respondent. He would submit that at no point of time, the respondent has never and ever misused the access granted to them which is evident from their service performance rendering for the  past five years without any complaint. Therefore, the learned counsel suggested that the applicant/TACTV may depute their technical team at the site of the respondent so as to verify whether the access granted was misused by the respondent.
  3. On the other hand, the learned Addl.Advocate General would submit that the respondent may be directed to bring the access key to the applicant/TACTV’s place and hand over to the technical team of the applicant for operation in their presence so as to avoid any misuse to be committed by the respondent. However, the respondent would submit that is not possible to hand over the access key and to operate the same from the applicant’s place with the help of the technical team/engineers of the applicant/TACTV and therefore,  it is possible only from the place of the respondent.
  4. Heard the learned Addl.Advocate General appearing for the applicant/TACTV and the learned counsel for the respondent and perused the entire materials placed on record.
  5. Considering the submissions made on behalf of the petitioner and the respondent and in view of the fact that nearly 20,00,000 customers have been facing inconvenience to get the services due to the dispute between the applicant and respondent, this Court is of the view that it would be appropriate to direct both parties as follows:
  6. i) The respondent along with their technical team/engineers, shall bring the access key to the place of the applicant/TACTV and handover the same to the applicant enable the applicant to operate the same; ii) In the event of any difficulties that would arise due to non-availability of technical team/pool engineers of the respondents to operate from the applicant’s venue, the applicant is permitted to depute its technical team/pool engineers to operate the same from the place of respondent, in which case, the respondent shall permit the applicant’s technical team/pool engineers to have the access key at the respondent’s place to operate the same in their presence and also monitor any misuse of access granted to the respondent as contended by the learned Addl.Advocate General.

iii) The above arrangement shall continue till filing of the counter and the same shall be filed on or before

15.12.2022.

  1. List the matter on 15.12.2022.

suk     09.12.2022 KRISHNAN RAMASAMY.J.

Suk

Arb.Appln.Nos.280 & 281 of 2022 in O.A.Nos.740 & 741 of 2022

09.10.2022

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