Case: Wire &amp; Wireless India Limited &amp; Others Vs. State of Maharashtra &amp; Another

3.Few facts relevant for the decision are that the petitioner No.1 is the Company engaged in distribution of Cable TV Signal through local cable operators in the vicinity of Mumbai and other adjoining areas in the State of Maharashtra, consequent to the licence granted to the petitioners by the Ministry of InformationBroadcasting, Government of India, on 30th September, 2006 under the said Act. The petitioner No.2 is aChairman of the said Company. The petitioner No.3 is the Managing Director of the petitioner No.1 Company. The petitioner No.4 is the Chief Operating Officer who is stated to have direct responsibility to report to the petitioner No.3 and to take a direction to further convey the same to the heads of department who are responsible for day to day affairs of the said company.4.The complainant, the respondent No.2 herein, visited the petitioner No.1s office at Madhu Industrial Estate, 4th Floor, P.B. Marg, Worli, Mumbai400 018, on 21st February, 2007 and found that pay channels could be seen without smart cards and that the SMS system was not updated and all channels could be seen without encryptions. Having so found, the impugned F.I.R. came to be recorded. The relevant portion regarding the allegations against the petitioners in the impugned F.I.R. read21.2.2007 I myself and staff visited WWIL Company situated at Madhu Industrial Estate, 4th Floor, P.B.Marg, Worli, Mumbai and found pay channels can be seen without smart card and SMS system is not updated and all channels can be seen without encryptions.On 13.03.07 P.I.Gaikwad and P.I. Gadade and staff visited WWIL Company and found that pay channels can be seen without encryption. As mentioned above WWIL Company and its office bearer namely 1. Shri Subhashchandra GoyalOwner of WWIL 2. Shri Jagjit Singh KohliChief Executive Officer 3. General AnandChief Operational Officer have contravened the provisions of Section 4(A) of Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995. And therefore, I lodge my complaint against thepersons of Company and WWIL Company."

Court's reasoning:
In fact, the FIR nowhere discloses any verification of the programme on any T.V. set at the premises of the subscribers. Considering the same, without going into the various other contentions sought to be canvassed in the matter, suffice to observe that the FIR which seeks to accuse the petitioners of commission of offence under Section 4A read with Sections 16 and 17 of the said Act on the basis that all the pay channels were available on T.V. Set at the control room of the petitioners, without the use of smart card in the Set Top Boxes, falls short of disclosing any cognizable offence to have been committed by the petitioners either under Section 4A or under any other provision of the said Act. Merely because clean feed was available at the control room of the petitioner company, without ascertaining whether all the pay channels were made available at the subscribers premises without use of the smart card in the said Set Top Box or not, it obviously discloses no cognisable offence by the petitioner. It is settled law that an FIR in terms of Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure can be registered only when a cognizable offence is disclosed. Merely because the programmes were in the course of transmission, in the absence of any such certificate from a subscriber or without ascertaining whether they were available in contravention of the provision of Section 4A at the subscribers T.V. Set, the respondents were not justified in recording FIR about alleged violation of the provisions of law comprised under Section 4A of the said Act by the petitioners. Viewed from this angle, therefore, the impugned FIR cannot be sustained and is liable to be quashed.13.It is however made clear that this shall not preclude the respondents from taking appropriate steps to ascertain whether the petitioners are complying with the provisions of the said Act or not, and to initiate proceedings if found violating the provisions of law.