DD will get the feed, not the cake

In a tacit vindication of the contract between Ten Sports and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), the apex court acknowledged that ‘‘Doordarshan did not have any right over the telecast’’ and, therefore, barred it from making any ‘‘commercial gains.’’

After a two-hour stormy session, the bench headed by Chief Justice V N Khare ordered Doordarshan to deposit Rs 50 crore with the court registry towards the compensation due to Ten Sports.

This includes the Rs 10 crore ordered in the last hearing. The entire amount has to be paid within a week.

In addition, the bench restrained the national channel from showing any of its own advertisements during the match and 30 minutes before and after the match. Doordarshan will also be required to display the Ten Sports logo throughout the telecast of the matches.

Solicitor General Kirit Raval, however, contended that Doordarshan should be allowed to show its own ads to recover the costs of transmitting the matches to the remotest corners of the country and to pay the compensation of Rs 50 crore to Ten Sports.

Rejecting Raval’s plea, the bench said, ‘‘There must be some contribution from Doordarshan towards protection of public interest in making it possible for all cricket fans in India to watch the historic series.’’

Significantly, the court adjourned the case to April 15, which is two days before the scheduled end of the last test between India and Pakistan. The ongoing one-days matches will be over by March 24.

The court said at the beginning of the hearing that it was not going to hear the case on merits today and asked both sides whether they were willing to arrive at a settlement. But the counsel for Ten Sports, Kapil Sibal, asserted that it ‘‘cannot have any settlement’’ with Doordarshan on the issue of sharing its exclusive contractual right to telecast the matches.

Ten Sports and its telecast distributor in India, Modi Entertainment Network, refused to negotiate with Doordarshan, saying the violation of their exclusive telecast rights would cost them a minimum loss of Rs 208 crore, a figure vehemently contested by Raval on the ground that its monthly income was no more than Rs 21 crore. Doordarshan, on its part, reiterated its offer of $10 million, which, it said, was ‘‘more than a generous payment’’ considering that Ten Sports had sold telecast rights to Pakistan Television for a small consideration of $0.5 million.

Seeing the sharp differences between the sides, the bench said the impasse could well have been averted if the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) had secured the rights of Doordarshan while fixing the itinerary for the series.

‘‘The BCCI should have negotiated with the PCB to ensure that Doordarshan got the right to telecast within India,’’ Justice Khare observed.

In a bid to mitigate the infringement of Ten Sports’s exclusive rights, the court restrained Doordarshan from putting its live telecast feed footprints on West Asia.

Ten Sports accused the Government of not attempting to find a solution and charged that Law Minister Arun Jaitley had not got back to its chief, Abdul Rahman Bukhatir, on the issue. Sibal described the Government’s moves as ‘‘a humbug to misguide the public.’’

Sibal contended that when Ten Sports bought the rights in 2002, Doordarshan had not even bid. Attorney General Soli Sorabjee said there was no question of bidding then as the armies of the two countries were facing each other.