live action of the cricket World Cup will be available even on private cable channels. Ending the monopoly enjoyed by Star India limited to telecast all World Cup matches, the Supreme Court on Friday allowed the public broadcaster Doordarshan to share live feed of the game to private cable operators.
Earlier, the Delhi High Court on February 4 had restrained Prasar Bharti from sharing live feed with cable channels, forcing the public telecaster to approach the apex court. Setting aside the order, the apex bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and PC Pant accepted the contention of Doordarshan that Star India was bound under law to share feed of matches having “national importance”.
The short interim order was passed keeping in mind the ongoing matches of the World Cup, particularly when India is playing South Africa on Sunday. The court did not discuss the arguments on merits and posted the appeal filed by Prasar Bharti in July.
Star India, which holds the exclusive telecast rights of the Cricket World Cup, had argued that the company would suffer heavy losses considering the huge investment made in order to secure exclusive telecast rights. The company insisted Prasar Bharti to open a separate channel to telecast world cup cricket matches but the court declined to entertain this suggestion.
Yet another suggestion was advanced by Star India asking Doordarshan to run a scroll that said “the channel displaying the sports event (concerned with ICC World Cup 2015 matches) is meant only for Doordarshan”. Even this suggestion was not entertained by the court.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi for Prasar Bharati argued that under both the Sports Act and Cable TV Networks Act, it is mandatory for a private channel to share feeds of matches having “national importance” with Prasar Bharati in order to make it available on its free-to-air terrestrial channels.