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Cricket
By A. Subramani
CHENNAI, MARCH 6. The Madras High Court today ordered notices to Prasar Bharati, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and Ten Sports on a public interest litigation petition seeking broadcast rights of India-Pakistan cricket series for Prasar Bharati. The series is slated to begin with a one-day international on March 13 and end with the Test series on April 14. The First Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, B. Subhashan Reddy, and Justice P. Shanmugam, admitted two PILs — by Krishnaswamy Associates Private Limited and the Citizen, Consumer and Civic Action Group — and posted the matter to March 10 for further hearing. Statutory obligation Sriram Panchu, senior counsel for the petitioners, submitted that the fundamental right to information included entertainment and sports, and that a public broadcaster such as the Prasar Bharati having a viewership of 85 millions had a statutory obligation to remain accessible to every viewer in all key matters. In his petition, S. Krishnaswamy contended that the Prasar Bharati was a statutory body created primarily to protect the interests of the public with regard to access to such major sporting events as the India-Pakistan cricket series. The TRAI, on its part, was also duty-bound to ensure that Ten Sports provided the requisite facilities at a reasonable cost and that the public had access to the event. The right to broadcast the five one-day international and three test match-series was purchased by Ten Sports from the Pakistan Cricket Board three years ago. According to the petitioner, Prasar Bharati did not participate in the bidding on account of strained relationship between the two countries then. Later, when Prasar Bharati wanted to purchase broadcasting rights and expressed its readiness to pay $4 million, the Ten Sports refused to sell the rights. Dr. Krishnaswamy said "the refusal by the Ten Sports amounted to an unfair trade practice. Such refusal amounts to `refusal to deal,' which is one of the unfair trade practices universally recognised to be an anti-competitive practice." Further he claimed that Prasar Bharati had now approached the TRAI with a request that the regulatory body frame guidelines in public interest. Stating that Prasar Bharati had also written to TRAI for making available the terrestrial television broadcast rights for the cricket series, the latter chose not to act upon the representation so far. 'Lack of legislation' "Most nations in the world have laws which provide that national and international events of general public interest shall have to be carried on the network of a public broadcaster as well. There has been a move to make such provisions under the proposed Communications Convergence Bill 2001," the petitioner submitted, and sought a direction to TRAI to pass orders on the representation of Prasar Bharati with regard to the rights to broadcast the India-Pakistan cricket series. In his petition, the Civic Action group trustee, N.L. Rajah, submitted that the sporting event, aimed at improving the amity and friendship between India and Pakistan "would act as a major event to cement the relationship between the two countries and boost bilateral relations. It is only fit and proper that every Indian should have free and unrestricted access to the event."
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