HC declines relief to ESPN-Star on India-SA series

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday refused to grant interim stay on the sharing of live feed with Doordarshan for the upcoming India-South Africa cricket series, the exclusive broadcast rights of which is with the ESPN-Star Sports channel.

Issuing notice to the Government and Prasar Bharti, Justice Anil Kumar posted the matter for hearing on Nov 21.

ESS had approached the court seeking to restrain Doordarshan from downlinking the live feed of the series beginning November 19.

The sports channel had challenged the Government's downlinking policy which makes it mandatory for the private broadcaster to share its feed with Prasar Bharti all sporting events of national importance.

The court directed the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Prasar Bharti and Ministry of Youth and Sports to respond within four days to the contentions of the private TV channel.

Advocate Rajeev Sharma accepted the notice on behalf of the public broadcaster.

The court did not accept sports channel's counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi's arguments for granting stay on the sharing of live feed with the DD, saying that it will hear the response of the rival parties before passing any order.

The senior advocate had argued that Centre's downlinking policy was violative of the Constitutional provision and Copyright Act. 

ESS had sought the quashing of the Information and Broadcasting November 11, 2005 guidelines which makes mandatory for private sports channels to share the broadcasting rights of national and international sporting events, held in India or abroad, with Doordarshan.

The channel contended that signal/feed of the sports events produced by it is protected under copyright law.

The right to grant license to re-broadcast and/or to distribute the channels also constituted a property and the Government's guideline has expropriated the property by making such provisions with regard to broadcasting policy, ESS said.

The channel also contended that it was only sports broadcasters who have been singled out for such discriminatory treatment as the broadcasters of entertainment, cultural and music channels were not expected to share their exclusive broadcasting rights nor were such requirements imposed on any other business entities.