Rupert Murdoch's Star India on Tuesday asked the Bombay high court to grant an anticipatory stay on Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd disconnecting its point-to-point transmission link if a government decision on uplinking news was delayed.
"This has been done to prevent disruption in services if the government delays permission on the news channel uplink," said a source close to the development.
Star uses the uplinking facility of VSNL to transmit content from India to its Hong Kong unit, allowing its news channel, Star News, almost real-time transmission. The hearing on Star's appeal will take place shortly.
Star's move comes after the information and broadcasting ministry toughened its stance on the application seeking permission to uplink the Star News channel from India.
"We have already given it three weeks grace and a temporary uplinking permission. We will have to take a view on whether this temporary permission can be extended endlessly and whether it should be given a fourth week," said an I&B ministry official. The permission for Star to uplink ends on Wednesday midnight.
Star India CEO Peter Mukherjea called an emergency meeting in Delhi on Tuesday, which was attended by Suhel Seth, R Karanjawala and Vir Sanghvi.
Called to formulate Star's future strategy, the shareholders of Media Content and Communication Services, the Star affiliate company that had sought the permission to uplink, also discussed the option of meeting Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to resolve the issue.
Meanwhile, Star functionaries said the company had answered all the queries raised by the government on its news operations.
I&B ministry officials, however, said they were yet to receive any information from the company on the questions raised by them.
The government had on Friday sent about 15 fresh queries to Star, including the shareholding pattern of MCCS. It had also asked for a copy of the agreements between Star and the Indian stakeholders in MCCS.
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