Apex court exonerates BCCI in Zee TV case

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today got a major reprieve in its tiff with the Subhash Chandra-promoted Zee Telefilms, over the cancellation of the award of cricket telecast rights, with the Supreme Court today ruling that the cricket board was not 'state' within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution and it could not be sued in a court for alleged violation of fundamental rights.

A five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Justice N Santosh Hegde, Justice S N Variava, Justice B P Singh, Justice HK Sema and Justice S B Sinha gave this landmark ruling, while dismissing a writ petition filed by Zee Telefilms seeking relief against the board for the alleged arbitrary cancellation of its bid for telecast rights of all cricket matches played in India for a period of four years.

The ruling was given by a 3:2 majority. While Justice Hegde, Justice Singh and Justice Sema held that the BCCI was not 'state' and dismissed Zee's petition, Justice Variava and Justice Sinha held that the board was 'state' within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Zee Telefilms said in a statement that it hailed the decision of Supreme Court stating that the BCCI was performing a public duty under Article 226.

"Zee Telefilms Limited will be approaching the High Court to pursue the matter. The case has been sub judice after Zee had had originally won the cricket rights by bidding the highest amount at $260 million on September 5, 2004," the company statement said, adding that its sports channel was set to start beaming from the second quarter of 2005.

The company also said that it is was waiting the final judgment of the apex court on the BCCI's move to cancel the award of broadcast right to it.

Zee had argued that BCCI had all the trappings of the state, as it was selecting the Indian teams and had been given de facto recognition by the government for other key functions.

Rejecting this argument, the majority judges pointed out that the central government had not passed any law authorising the BCCI to select the teams or take on other official duties.

"The attempt to show the control exercised by the government over BCCI was not administrative in nature and could best be termed as regulatory in nature," the bench said, after examining several previous rulings of the Supreme Court.

If BCCI was declared as state, as many as 64 other private sports bodies also would have to be declared so. Even those who organised Miss India show should also be declared as 'state'. This would open a floodgate of litigation in the Supreme Court, the judgment asserted.