NEW DELHI: The Subhash Chandra-promoted Zee Telefilms today filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging a Madras high court order that upheld Indian cricket board's decision to cancel the tender process for awarding telecast rights for domestic cricket till 2008.
 

In its petition, filed through counsel Maninder Singh, Zee said it had emerged as the highest bidder for the telecast rights of cricket matches played in India under the aegis of the cricket board between 2004-08 and, hence, should have been awarded the contract, a Press Trust of India report said.
 
 

A division Bench of the Madras high court on 2 May had set aside a single judge's order, which held that the cancellation of tender process by the cricket board was "improper." The single Bench had directed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to call for fresh tenders and permitted Zee Telefilms and ESPN to participate in the fresh tender process.

However, a division bench, comprising chief justice Markandeya Katju and Justice Ibrahim Khalifullah, took exception to the single judge's remarks that the cancellation was vitiated by arbitrariness and unfair action of the BCCI and its former chief Jagmohan Dalmia, in particular.

The judges held "these remarks against the BCCI and Dalmia are unjustified, uncalled for and unsustainable."

The apex court is already besieged with a clutch of cricket-related cases, which also includes one where Indian pubcaster Doordarshan and Dubai-based Ten Sports have locked horns over an Indo-Pakistan cricket series played in Pakistan in 2004.