Delhi High Court
Entertainment Television ... vs Union Of India And Anr. on 22 November, 2016
$~67
*IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
% Judgment delivered on: 22.11.2016
+ W.P.(C) 11004/2016 & CM Nos.43047/2016 (stay)
ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION NETWORK LTD AND ANR.
..... Petitioners
versus
UNION OF INDIA AND ANR. ..... Respondents
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner : Mr. Parag Tripathi, Sr. Advocate and Mr. Sudhir Nandrajog,
Sr. Advocate with Mr. Vikram Mehta, Mr. Siddhartha Jain,
Mr. Gaurav Choudhary and Ms. Raka Chatterjee, Advocates.
For the Respondents : Mr. Anil Soni, CGSC for respondent No.1.
CORAM:-
HON'BLE MR JUSTICE SANJEEV SACHDEVA
JUDGMENT
22.11.2016
SANJEEV SACHDEVA, J. (ORAL)
1. With the consent of the parties the Writ Petition is taken up for
disposal today itself.
2. The petitioners seek quashing of order dated 04.11.2016,
whereby, the respondent No.1 has proceeded ex-parte against the
petitioners and has declined to renew the permission granted to the
petitioners for setting up Teleport at Mumbai and for permission to
uplink and downlink two Non-News and Current Affairs TV Channels
namely "M Tunes HD Hindi" and "Bhakti Sagar". The respondent
No.1 has further directed removal of the names of the said Teleports
from the list of Teleports and TV channels.
3. It is contended by the petitioners that they were never served
with the show cause notice, consequent to which, the impugned order
had been passed. It is contended that, from the impugned order, the
petitioners had become aware that a show cause notice dated
17.02.2016 was sent to the petitioners requiring the petitioners to file
a response thereto and on the alleged failure of the petitioners to file a
reply to the show cause notice, the respondent No.1 has proceeded ex-
parte and passed the impugned order.
4. It is contended that no such show cause notice has been
received either physically or electronically through any e-mail. It is
contended that the e-mail address mentioned in the impugned order
i.e. „[email protected]‟ is not the e-mail address which was
submitted by the petitioners with the respondent No.1 for the purposes
of correspondence.
5. Learned counsel for the respondent No.1 has produced the
relevant files for perusal of the court.
6. It is contended by learned counsel for the Respondent that the
show cause notice was duly sent to the two addresses mentioned by
the petitioners and also on the e-mail address
(„[email protected]‟) obtained by the respondent No.1 from the
record of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA).
7. It is further contended that hard copy of the notice has been
served on the petitioners by speed post. It is contended that since the
petitioners had failed to file any response to the show cause notice, the
respondent No.1 was constrained to proceed ex-parte and pass the
impugned order on account of denial of security clearances by the
Ministry of Home Affairs.
8. Perusal of the record produced by respondent No.1 shows that
the petitioners, in addition to their address for correspondence had
also stated an e-mail address i.e. „[email protected]‟.
9. Admittedly, the show cause notice sent through e-mail was not
sent to the said e-mail address. Further, the hard copy of the show
cause notice is purported to have been sent by speed post to the
address of the petitioners at 7-B, Shah Industrial Estate, Off Veera
Desai Road, Andheri (West), Mumbai - 400 053.
10. The respondent No.1 relies on a photocopy of extract of the
dispatch register of 18.02.2016, wherein, the letter number and the
name of the petitioner have been mentioned.
11. It is observed that in the dispatch register, against the various
entries of dispatch, there is no mention of any tracking number issued
by the postal authorities. However, in front of the entry of the
despatch to the petitioner, a tracking number has been mentioned in
ink. No such entry is present in front of any other entry. This clearly
establishes that the tracking number has been added after a photocopy
has been taken of the dispatch register.
12. The tracking report of the tracking number, qua the petitioner,
shows that the article had been delivered on 22.02.2016, however, in
the columns „Booked At‟, „Booked On‟, „Destination‟, „Pin Code‟,
„Tariff‟, „Article‟ categories, the endorsement is "Not Available". In
my view, the said report is of no help to the respondent to establish
that the show cause notice was ever served upon the petitioner.
13. Further, it may be observed that even on 15.11.2016, an officer
of the respondent No.1 has sent an e-mail, though not connected with
the issue at hand, at the e-mail address
„[email protected]‟, in addition to the same being also
addressed to „nikhil1967.gmail.com‟, which establishes that the
Respondent No. 1 had the said email address of the petitioner in their
records.
14. In view of the fact, that there is insufficient proof available on
record to conclusively establish that the show cause notice was served
on the petitioner, the action of the respondent No.1, proceeding ex-
parte against the petitioners and passing the impugned order, cannot
be sustained, the impugned order dated 04.11.2016 is quashed.
15. A copy of the show cause notice has been handed over to the
counsel for the petitioners in Court today. The petitioners are given
liberty to respond to the said show cause notice within a period of one
week from today. After the expiry of one week, the respondent No.1
would be at liberty to adjudicate the show cause notice afresh in
accordance with law.
16. The writ petition is, accordingly, disposed of.
17. Dasti under the signatures of the Court Master.
SANJEEV SACHDEVA, J
NOVEMBER 22, 2016
st
