The Hindu : Sport : BCCI, Dalmiya appeal against order

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 02, 2005

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Sport - Sports : General

BCCI, Dalmiya appeal against order

By A. Subramani

CHENNAI, APRIL 1. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its former president Jagmohan Dalmiya, who were severely criticised by a single judge of the Madras High Court for "improperly" cancelling the tender process for telecast rights, today appealed against the March 21 order.

The appeals, expected to come up for hearing on Monday, said: "The Judge had committed gross errors of justice by coming to the finding that the cancellation of the tenders was improper and was vitiated by arbitrariness and unfair action of the BCCI and Mr. Dalmiya."

On March 21, Justice K.P. Sivasubramaniam had declared the cancellation as unjust and illegal, and described the Zee Telefilms Limited (ZTL) was a "victim of unfair action of the Board," and criticised Mr. Dalmiya for attempting to oust the ZTL from the tendering process in a "clandestine and unethical manner." The row relates to the award of telecast rights for all cricket matches to be played in India between 2004 and 2008.

The present appeals said, "the entire findings of the single Judge on the illegality of the cancellation and the bias responsible for the cancellation have been rendered without reference to the fact that the Board and Mr. Dalmiya had little choice other than bringing to an end the dispute between the uncompromising stand of the two parties — ZTL and the ESPN Star Sports — with the grave risk of Australian series being called off."

They said the conclusion of the single Judge, that the cancellation of the tender process was illegal, was "based primarily on surmises and not on any statement or documents. As such the entire judgment is against the facts and law, and is, therefore, liable to be set aside." According to the appellants, the tender process was cancelled in the interest of the game of cricket and in public interest.

They further said that the single judge had erred in finding bias against the Board and Mr. Dalmiya for imposing condition of payment of 20 million dollars as advance "when both the parties understood the payment as being required to be made within two days."

The Board and Mr. Dalmiya contended that the single judge ought not have given any direction on the manner in which the Board should deal with the question of telecast rights in future, when that was not the subject matter of the writ petition before him.

Maintaining that certain remarks by the single judge against Mr. Dalmiya were wholly unjustified, the appeals said, the conclusion that the Board and Mr. Dalmiya wanted the ESPN Star Sports to walk over the highest bidder in a clandestine manner was "wholly erroneous and imaginary."

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