TRAI withdraws 15% discount cap petition from Supreme Court

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has withdrawn its appeal before the Supreme Court to reinstate the 15% cap on discounting of channel bouquets under the new MRP-based tariff order.

The 15% cap, part of TRAI’s new MRP-based tariff order, was set aside by the Madras High Court on a plea filed by Star India, following which the authority had moved the Supreme Court.

The appeal was listed at No. 30 for hearing today in the Supreme Court before the court of Justice RF Nariman. TRAI’s advocate Rakesh Dwivedi felt that the case will get dismissed and hence they decided to withdraw the case.

The tariff order allows consumers to decide which channels to watch and mandates broadcasters to come up with a per month maximum retail price (MRP) for the channels.

Broadcasters were also allowed to offer bouquets of channels. But the authority wanted to cap the bouquet pricing at 15%. Now that the case stands withdrawn, the broadcasters won’t have to make any changes in the issued bouquet MRP. Currently, the broadcasters are offering around 30%-55% discounts on the bouquet pricing.

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