V. Dhanapalan, J.

1. Respondent is the plaintiff, who filed the suit for a permanent injunction against the appellant/defendant restraining him from in any way acting in violation of the Franchisee Agreement dated 14.04.2003 and refraining from disconnecting the link or discontinuing the transmission or signals or from in any way taking signals or links from third parties to carry on any competing business directly or indirectly either by themselves or in association with any other persons or through their subsidiary affiliates or by joint venture for the purpose of broadcast or distribution or transmission of any satellite television channels through Community Antenna Television System other than that of the respondent and for costs.

2. Respondent is a Multi System Operator, distributing satellite television channels in Tamil Nadu through Cable Operators by supplying signals to them through the cables installed by him, for which purpose he entered into a Franchisee Agreement with the Cable Operators.

3. Under the Franchisee Agreement, the appellant had undertaken not to discontinue the facility provided by the respondent and not to take the link and distribute the signals of any third parties during the currency of the agreement. Since the appellant, according to the respondent, attempted to commit a breach of the obligations under the Franchisee Agreement, the suit was filed for the relief stated supra.

4. Pending suit, ad interim injunction was granted and, after service of notice in the application for injunction, the appellant filed Application No.1253 of 2008, seeking rejection of the plaint, which was dismissed by a learned single Judge. Aggrieved over the said order of dismissal, this O.S.A.is filed.

5. The one and only contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is that the suit is hit by Sections 15 and 27 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act,1997 and, therefore, the plaint is liable to be rejected. The learned counsel has relied upon the following decisions :

(i) Cellular Operators Association of India and Others v. Union of India and Others, 2003(3) SCC 186 :

"8.... It is not necessary for us to notice all the decisions cited by the learned Attorney-General in order to arrive at the conclusion as to what is the extent of jurisdiction of the Appellate Tribunal under Section 14 of the Act. Suffice it to say, Chapter IV containing Section 14 was inserted by an amendment of the year 2002 and the very Statement of Objects and Reasons would indicate that to increase the investors confidence and to create a level playing field between the public and the private operators, suitable amendment in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act,1997 was brought about and under the amendment, a tribunal was constituted called the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal for adjudicating the disputes between a licensor and a licensee, between two or more service providers, between a service provider and a group of consumers and also to hear and dispose of appeal against any direction, decision or order of the Authority. The aforesaid provision was absolutely essential as the organizations of the licensor, namely, MTNL and BSNL were also service providers. That being the object for which an independent tribunal was constituted, the power of that Tribunal has to be adjudged from the language conferring that power and it would not be appropriate to restrict the same on the ground that the decision which is the subject-matter of challenge before the Tribunal was that of an expert body. It is no doubt true, to which we will advert later, that the composition of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India as well as the constitution of GOT-IT in April 2001 consists of a large number of eminent impartial experts and it is on their advice, the Prime Minister finally took the decision, but that would not in any way restrict the power of the Appellate Tribunal under Section 14, even though in the m