KARACHI, Dec 17: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday converted an appeal preferred by a channel distributor against a decision rendered by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority into a writ petition and transferred it from a single judge to a division bench for hearing on Thursday.

Justice S. Ahmed Sarwana, who had issued notices in the appeal and sought assistance from a deputy attorney-general, was informed by Pemra counsel Ali Jafar on Wednesday that there was no provision for appeal against a “determination” by the authority as claimed by the appellant’s counsel, Mahmood Mandviwala and Ijaz Ahmed. A provision (section 30-A) was proposed to be inserted into the Pemra Ordinance, 2001, along with certain other provisions but the proposal did not materialize. The website relied upon by the counsel for filing the appeal was not correct, Advocate Ali Jafar stated.

The appeal (now a writ petition) challenges a Pemra “determination” fixing tariff ceilings of Re 1 per channel per subscriber per month for foreign channels and Rs 2 per channel per subscriber per month for Pakistani and foreign sports channels. Foreign channels were required to include “Pakistani content” in their programmes and all charges were to be billed in the Pakistani currency.

Describing the rates as “unrealistically low”, the Karachi- based Dubai Marine Establishment (Private) Limited submitted that it was licensed by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority in September 2000 to operate under the brand name of “Star TV” and lease or sell cable television descrambler units on payment of the prescribed dues and subject to conditions set out in the Cable TV Regulations, 2000. It maintained that Pemra had jurisdiction over TV stations and cable operators only and channel distributors were not amenable to its regulatory authority.

According to Pemra, the rates were not arbitrary and were fixed after taking all relevant factors into consideration.