In another twist to the row over cricket telecast rights, the Board of Control for Cricket in India informed the Supreme Court on Monday that television coverage of India's domestic series with
Australia and South Africa in the coming months would be produced by it with live feed to Prasar Bharati for domestic viewers and international telecast rights to "somebody else".
"We will produce the TV coverage of the matches of the cricket series, starting from October 6, including the India-South Africa series that follow immediately thereafter," K K Venugopal, counsel for Board of Control for Cricket in India, submitted before the court during the hearing of a petition filed by Zee TV, challenging Board's decision to cancel allotment of telecast rights in its favour.
"Prasar Bharati will do the live telecast for the domestic viewers and the international telecast rights will be given to 'somebody else'," Venugopal said, when the Court asked him to respond to Zee TV's allegation that the Board had cancelled the contract in a mala fide manner "to benefit a particular Sports channel".
A bench, comprising Justice N Santosh Hegde, Justice B P Singh and Justice S B Sinha, meanwhile, issued notice to the Centre, BCCI, ESPN-STAR and Price Water Cooper Ltd and posted it for hearing on Tuesday before a five-Judge constitution Bench, taking note of the important questions of law raised by the petitioner.
The Board had, on September 21, cancelled the entire tender process in which Zee had emerged as the highest bidder for telecast of all cricket matches played in India between 2004 and 2008.
