Vijayawada: A team of court-appointed officials on Friday conducted searches in the office of ‘K Channel’, a television service provider owned by Kodela Sivaramakrishna, son of AP Legislative Assembly Speaker K. Sivaprasada Rao, following complaints of piracy.
According to reports, some pay channels lodged a police complaint against Sivaramakrishna about piracy and also filed a petition in the Delhi High Court.
The court appointed a four-member Advocates’ Commission that conducted searches and seized an encoder and set top box that was purportedly used for piracy.
According to reports, Sivaramakrishna, who runs K channel at Narasaraopeta and adjacent areas had rights to telecast only ETV and Gemini TV channels. However, his firm has been providing Zee, Star and Maa TV channels through DTH to subscribers without the requisite permissions or tie-ups with those channels for the past few years. Sivaramakrishna allegedly indulged in a technical offense and collected huge amounts from subscribers without passing on the benefits to the channels.
Representatives of the Star Plus network lodged a complaint with the Narasaraopeta II-Town police two years ago, but because of Kodela’s clout, the police did not respond to the complaint and hence the network approached the Delhi High Court.
The court directed an Advocate Commissioner to study the complaint and submit a report. Members of the court-appointed commission, led by advocate M. Nanavati, visited the K channel office in the Speaker’s camp office at Narasaraopet and conducted searches on Thursday. However, the matter came to light only on Friday.
According to reports, Telugu Desam leaders and activists rushed to the spot and tried to stop the searches. They beat a retreat after being told that any resistance would be treated as contempt of court.
With the help of the II-Town police, members of the commission seized an encoder and set top boxes.
The Advocates’ Commission will submit a report to the court. Narasaraopet-2 inspector A. Alahari confirmed that the Advocate Commission conducted searches with the help of the police. He said that the members prepared a copy of the proceedings and said that they would submit a report in the Delhi High Court.
