‘‘The order was given by a single judge, so the ministry has decided to contest this by filing an appeal in a two-judge bench in the HC,’’ a senior I&B Ministry official said.

The March 10 HC directive to implement CAS in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata in four weeks’ time was received with much scepticism in the Ministry. The HC criticised the Centre for not implementing the CAS regime in the three metros. The HC also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh as costs on the government for ‘‘unfairly compelling the petitioners to approach this court’’, saying that ‘‘no valid or even debatable defence whatsoever has been raised’’.

The Ministry sources said that the government was initially considering an appeal to be filed to the Supreme Court. ‘‘The court has passed its judgement, without realising the practical difficulties. This needed to be reviewed,’’ the sources said. However, after taking the AG’s opinion, the Ministry decided to approach the HC’s division bench.

Justice Vikramjit Sen of the HC had passed the judgment on a petition by Hathway Cable Datacom Private Limited and others, where the petitioners had sought a direction to the Centre to implement CAS or pay damages to them on the ground that they had invested several crores of rupees for the infrastructure to implement it. The Centre had in 2003 directed implementation of CAS in four metros.

Additional Solicitor-General P P Malhotra had last year assured the Court that the Centre would soon take a decision in the matter. However, on January 4, 2006, he hd informed the Court that the Centre still required one month to finalise the matter. Till date, the requisite action had not been taken, the judgement had stated. The government had notified implementation of CAS with effect from September 1, 2003, after making an amendment to the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995.

The sources said,‘‘The notification had sparked a controversy with many TV watchers protesting, questioning the need to impose an unnecessary system that would entail a huge expenditure on their part. The entire rationale on whether the Centre or the Court can dictate technological choices needs to be looked into.’’