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NEW
DELHI: Millions of Doordarshan viewers will be denied the
opportunity to see the India-South Africa series commencing
this week, despite a legislation arming Prasar Bharati with
the power for mandatory sharing of sports signals of all events
notified by the Government.
This follows the order of 28 February by the Delhi High Court
in a case filed by Ravi Dev Gupta against the Union of India
and the Board of Control of Cricket in India wanting a mandatory
order that all matches held in the country should be telecast
live.
The
Court order had stated that Central Government has to take
a decision either way. It had also said that the government
should take a decision on the issue in two weeks.
The
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting today announced its
decision not to declare the upcoming India-South Africa test
cricket series as sporting event of national importance for
the purpose of sharing of broadcast signals with Prasar Bharati.
This
means that Nimbus and its channel Neo Sports will be the sole
telecasters of the series in which the first Test will be
played in Chennai from 26 to 30 March, the second Test in
Ahmedabad from 3 to 7 April, and the third test match in Kanpur
from 11 to 15 April.
The
Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar
Bharati) Act 2007 provides for mandatory sharing of sports
signals by right owners for all such events which are notified
by the Central Government under Clause (s) of sub-section
(1) of Section 2 of the said Act and after following the procedure
prescribed under the provisions of said Act and rules made
thereto.
The
public interest litigation by cricket buff Ravi Dev Gupta
has challenged the government's decision not to place all
the test matches at par with One-Day and Twenty20 matches
as sporting events of public interest and ensure telecast
of all test matches on DD. A notification of October 3 had
declared that like One-Day and Twenty20 matches, all test
matches were not of high public interest and the public broadcaster
was not bound to telecast all test matches.
Earlier in December last, the Court had sought an explanation
from the Centre on its policy for declaring a cricket test
match as a sporting event of public interest before broadcasting
it on Doordarshan.
"We want to know, do you have any norms to decide or
it is to be decided on case to case basis. What are the guidelines
on the basis of which it is to be decided whether it is of
high public interest or not," a Bench of Justices T S
Thakur and Veena Birbal said.
"How do you decide whether a test match is of public
interest or not? If the government fails to explain it, then
the impression would go that classification has been done
on extraneous reasons," the Bench had said, while directing
the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to file its reply
by 8 January.
The Bench had also turned down the Government counsel's submission
to dismiss the PIL and said, "Exercise of discretion
(by the government) is open to judicial scrutiny so that it
should not be arbitrary."
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