Prasar Bharti challenges direction on delayed telecast of cricket

New Delhi, Jan 24 (UNI) Prasar Bharti today challenged the interim direction of the Delhi High Court on the delayed telecast of the India-West Indies ODI series saying the order was against the government circular.

In the morning, Counsel Vijay Hansaria appearing for Prasar Bharti mentioned the matter before a division bench of Chief Justice M K Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Khanna.

The court posted the matter for hearing tomorrow.

In an interim order on January 23, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had allowed the Prasar Bharti to download the feed of Nimbus Comunications and telecast the series in a delayed transmission of seven minutes on Doordarshan(DD) and allowed the commentary live on the All India Radio(AIR).

After hearing preliminary arguments, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had said, ''A delayed telecast of seven minutes which consumes two overs will meet the purpose in public interest.'' While hearing another petition, Justice Kaul today said the exclusive marketing right for the advertisements shown on DD would be with the Nimbus Communications.

Nimbus Communications was directed to deposit Rs 5.5 crore with Prasar Bharti as guarantee money for the series.

Nimbus, the owner of the NEO TV, said it could market the series for Rs 22 crore against the proposed sale of the commercials by the DD for Rs 5.5 crore, said Senior Counsel Harish Salve appearing for the private channel.

The court also directed DD not to sell the telecast rights to private DTH operators such as TATA Sky, Dish TV and others.

The single bench had directed Prasar Bharti and the centre to file their replies to the petition of the Nimbus Comunications by February 8, the next date of hearing.

Additional Solicitor General(ASG) P P Malhotra, apppearing for the the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, submitted that the guidelines of the government to share the feed of any sports event in the country was in public interest.

Senior Counsel Harish Salve, appearing for Nimbus communications, (NC) said the Government could not force any private channel to share its live feed as it was against the fundamental rights enumerated in the Constitution.

He said the private channel was ready to give the feed to the DD, if it agreed to telecast the matches seven minutes later on a profit share basis of 25:75 basis.

Yesterday, the Nimbus Communications had approached the High Court challenging the Central Government's guidelines to the private channels to share the live feed of the ongoing series with the public broadcaster-Prasar Bharti.

UNI