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NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today issued notice to Nimbus
Communications on a petition by Prasar Bharati challenging
the order of the single bench last week permitting telecast
of the ongoing one-day cricket series with West Indies with
a seven-minute deferred telecast.
A Division Bench of the High Court headed by Chief Justice
MK Sharma asked Nimbus, who own Neo Sports channel, to file
their reply to the notice by 9 February.
The petition by Prasar Bharati has contended that the order
of the single judge is violative of the principle of equitable
justice as it treats viewers of satellite TV differently from
those who receive signals terrestrially.
Earlier on 23 January, Justice SK Kaul had permitted Doordarshan
to telecast the matches with a seven-minute deferred telecast.
He had, however, permitted All India Radio to broadcast the
commentary live.
The same court had a day later asked Nimbus to deposit Rs 55
million within a week, even as it gave the marketing rights
to the former because it had said it could raise almost five
times more than competing public broadcaster Prasar Bharati.
Meanwhile, the rights to market events on AIR’s 69 channels
lies with Prasar Bharati, and the court will decide on the
revenue sharing ratio on 10 February, when the rest of the
contentious issues would also be taken up.
The court, however, held that though Prasar Bharati could
stream the matches thorough its DTH platform, it would not
allow any private DTH operator to access that and show the
matches.
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