Delayed telecast of cricket to continue, Nimbus sticks to Court orde

New Delhi, Feb 9 (UNI) Despite the Government promulgating an ordinance forcing private sports channels to share live feed of cricket and other sports events with the public broadcaster, the non-cable homes in the country would watch the India-Sri Lanka second one day international(ODI) at Rajkot on Sunday seven minutes late on Doordarshan.

Justice B D Ahmed refused to issue conditional stay of the execution of the ordinance that makes it mandatory for Nimbus Comminications, the owner of the NEO Sports, to share live feed with the Doordarshan.

The interim order of the High Court, which had directed the public broadcaster to download the signals seven minutes behind, was also not quashed in accordance with the provisions of the ordinance.

Even though the ordinance was promulgated on February 7, Nimbus Communication did not give live signals of the Kolkota ODI on February 8, sticking to the High Court order.

Nimbus has filed a petition before the bench of Chief Justice M K Sharma challenging the Sports Broadcasting (Mandetory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) Ordinance, 2007 as 'bad in law'.

The matter will come up for a hearing on February 12.

Appearing before Justice Ahmed, the court hearing the orginal petition, Senior Counsel Harish Salve submitted that the signals of the free-to-air telecast of the Doordarshan(DD) could be downloaded by the neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka, Singpore, Malayasia, whole of South-East Asia and West-Asia causing irriparable loss to the private channel.

''The ordinance transgresses the constitutional limits and apart from violating the petitioner's fundamental rights, it also interferes with the power of the court to review the circular enforcing the private channels to share the feed,'' said the petition.

Despite requests, Prasar Bharti did not fix decryption boxes in its 1400 low power transmission (LTP) centres and people in neighbouring countries were watching the matches free, said Salve.

Appearing for the gvoernment Additional Solicitor General(ASG) PP Malhotra said the petition of Nimbus Communications should be dismissed as it had challenged the circular of the government contrary to its Fundamental Right, enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution.

Citing judgements of Supreme Court, Mr Malhotra said it was the fundamental right of every citizen to view and listen the cricket matches or sports events on TV or Radio held in the country.

Mr Malhotra read out the relevant portions of the ordinance saying that the private channel will have to share live feed with DD and AIR.

On January 23, in an interim order, the High Court had allowed the Government-owned Prasar Bharti to download the feed of Nimbus Comunications and telecast the India-West Indies ODI series in a delayed transmission of seven minutes on Doordarshan (DD) and broadcast commentary live on the All India Radio(AIR).

UNI