Prasar Bharati gets cricket telecast rights

Board tells court Zee is ineligible.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today informed the Delhi High Court that it had given television rights to Prasar Bharati for the telecast of the upcoming India-Sri Lanka and India-South Africa cricket series as an interim arrangement.

BCCI counsel Soli Sorabjee, appearing before a bench comprising Justices M K Sharma and Sanjiv Khanna, said the interim arrangement was made in view of the India-Sri Lanka series starting from October 25 and India-South Africa series scheduled from November 16. The production rights for both the series had been given to Trans World International (TWI), he said.

Sorabjee said Zee Telefilms was found ineligible on many counts in its bid for the telecast of cricket matches for the next four years for which tender was floated in September 2005.

While fixing the next hearing for Monday, the court asked BCCI to state the submissions which it made in the court in an affidavit by Saturday (October 22).

Senior counsel Harish Salve appearing for Zee Telefilms objected to Sorabjee's statement saying the bids should not have been disclosed as BCCI had given an assurance to the court that it would not grant any TV rights to any particular party pending the petition filed by Zee.

Sorabjee also raised the issue of jurisdiction of the Delhi High Court saying the petition should have been filed in Chennai or Mumbai, the BCCI's registered office and the head office, respectively.

Contending this, Salve said the Delhi High Court had the right to hear the petition as the Union of India was one of the respondents.

However, the Judges said the issue of interim arrangements would be looked into first and the issue of jurisdiction would be taken up later.

A division bench of the high court headed by Chief Justice Markandeya Katju had yesterday transferred Zee Telefilm's petition to the division bench headed by Justice M K Sharma as he had heard another telecast rights case between the parties in the Madras High Court.

On October 4, the court had allowed BCCI to open technical bids to decide the eligibility of bidders, including Zee Telefilms, for grant of telecast and broadcast rights in India for the next four years after Zee said it had no objection to it.

However, it had asked BCCI not to disclose the outcome.

Senior counsel Aryam Sundaram, appearing for BCCI, had earlier assured the court that the result of the bid would be held up till the case was finalised.

Zee Telefilms, through counsels Prathiba M Singh and Jawahar Goel, had moved the court on August 22 seeking direction to the BCCI to consider it for the bid of telecasting cricket matches between October 2005 and September 2009.

The petition alleged that "the eligibility conditions in the tender floated on August 16 was framed in such a manner so as to render Zee Telefilms and any other private licensed Indian Broadcasters ineligible."

Zee Telefilms alleged that the tender favoured only ESPN Star Sports, which incidentally is a foreign channel.

The BCCI had asked bids from the channels who had experience in telecasting live cricket matches in last three years as opposed to the experience of two years in the past. The last date for submission of the bids was September 26.

Howzzat!

BCCI says arrangement with Prasar Bharati is an interim one

Says it found Zee Telefilms ineligible to bid for cricket telecast rights in India for four years

BCCI asked to file an affidavit giving details its decision