Vizag ODI live on DD; Prasar Bharati, Nimbus reach agreement

New Delhi, Feb 15 (UNI) The Nimbus Communications, the owner of NEO Sports, today submitted before the Delhi High Court that it will provide 'live feed' to public broadcaster Prasar Bharti for telecast of the final cricket one-day international (ODI) between India and Sri Lanka at Visakhapatnam on February 17 on Doordarshan (DD).

A bench headed by Justice Vikramajit Sen said both the Prasar Bharti and Nimbus agreed to share the live feed to telecast the cricket match and the government also gave consent not to initiate any action against the private channel till March 9, the next date of hearing.

Nimbus submitted that the the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had served it a notice for cancellation of its licence for not abiding by the terms of the ordinance promulgated on February 7.

After the arguments, the court said both the Prasar Bharti and Nimbus agreed to share the live feed to telecast the cricket match and the government also gave consent not to initiate any action against the private channel till March 9, the next date of hearing.

However, the court refused to amend the order by the single bench on sharing of the revenue between the two warring parties.

Nimbus Communications submitted before the bench that the notice served on it to file a reply by today (February 15) 1100 hrs to the allegations for not sharing the live feed of last two ODIs was 'arbitrary and unconstitutional'.

''It amounts to armtwisting by the government to force it to share live feed. Moreover, the private channel had written to the Prasar Bharti on February 13 to download live signal for the ODI played at Rajkot on February 14, but it deliberately chose to telecast the match with seven minutes delay,'' said the Nimbus counsel.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) P P Malhotra and Senior Counsel Dushyant Dave appearing for the Government and Prasar Bharti respectively submitted that the private channel not only flouted the tender clauses but also dishonoured the Presidential decree that was pronounced in public interest.

UNI