Delhi HC adjourns Ad Cap Case to 24th March

In the last verdict of the Delhi HC the hearing was adjourned to January 21 for the 10 + 2 ad cap case and today it has been further adjourned till March 24th. This indeed gives the broadcasters a breather.

In the last hearing on November 20th, it was told that the final hearing for the 10+2 ad cap case will happen on 21st January. But it was learnt today that the case is adjourned to March 24th for the final hearing.

In a recent event, The Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley also mentioned that the Government is not in favor of a cap on advertising for TV or print media. Indeed there is no clarity on what is in the basket for the broadcasters.

As known to us, some of the parties to this case are B4U, News Broadcasters Association (NBA), 9X Media, Sun TV Network, TV Vision, E24 and Kalaignar TV against the TRAI.

In an earlier session, Advocate Saket Singh, the advocate for TRAI and the respondent in this case, pointed out that in some cases; few broadcasters have been found violating the ad cap rules, with the violations sometimes extending to almost 20 hours a day.

In the December 2013 hearing, the Delhi High Court had given a three month temporary relief to the broadcasters when it asked TRAI not to take a coercive action against them for not following the 12 minute ad cap mandate. At that time the broadcasters were asked to send their weekly advertisement data to TRAI. This order was passed following a writ petition filed by the broadcasters on December 17, 2013 to get the ad cap reviewed quickly.