The Hindu Business Line : SC to hear Zee's plea on Tuesday

THE Supreme Court will hear on October 5 another application filed by Zee Telefilms challenging the move by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to award telecasting rights to Ten Sports and Sony network to telecast the first Test between India and Australia starting on October 6.

A Bench of Mr Justice Santosh Hegde and Mr Justice S.B. Sinha posted the application before a Constitution Bench, which is seized of the matter, after hearing senior counsel for Zee Telefilms, Mr Ram Jethmalani, brought to the notice of the court about the BCCI's decision on Thursday to award the contract to Ten Sports and Sony.

He said the BCCI was acting arbitrarily by asking Sony TV, whose bid for the telecast rights was the lowest, to arrange for the live telecast of the match.

Appearing for the Board, senior advocate Mr A.M. Singhvi said that Ten Sports would produce the matches with live feed to Sony, which would also provide live feed to Doordarshan.

The Bench, while directing the application to be listed for hearing on Tuesday, asked the Board to file its reply and clarify as to how Sony TV and Ten Sports had been given the task of telecasting the first Test when it had submitted before the court earlier that the telecast would be on Doordarshan.

Later in the day, Doordarshan also announced that it would enter the legal fray by filing a petition in the apex court on Monday challenging the BCCI's decision to award the telecasting rights to Sony and Ten Sports.

In its application, Zee submitted that the court could consider its revised proposal submitted to the Board on September 23 suggesting a reasonable and a workable solution, viz. pending consideration of its writ petition (challenging the cancellation of the contract) it would telecast the matches at their own risk and cost without any equities attached.

If the apex court upheld the cancellation of the contract, it would deposit the entire advertisement revenue collected (both in Zee channel and Doordarshan after deducting the agency sales commission for such advertisements and the mutually agreed production costs and any telecast fee which it had to pay to the Doordarshan) with the BCCI.

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