The Bombay high court, hearing ESPN-Star Sport's petition challenging the Board of Control for Cricket in India's decision to award cricket telecast rights to Zee Telefilms Ltd, on Friday observed that if the conditions of the tender are strictly adhered to then both Zee Telefilms Ltd and ESPN-Star Sports do not qualify to bag the rights.
The court told Zee Telefilms Ltd's counsel Harish Salve, "If we strictly stick to your line of argument then both the parties (Zee Telefilms Ltd and ESPN Star Sports) would be ineligible."
The observation came when Salve was arguing ESPN-Star Sports' contention that Zee Telefilms Ltd does not have the required experience and does not own "production facilities" required for the live telecast of cricket matches.
Salve pointed out that ESPN-Star Sports just hires the production units and, going by the records submitted, in the last two years it has produced only one series exclusively. That, he said, does not fulfill the required "minimum two years of experience criteria".
Salve also told the court that like ESPN-Star Sports, even Zee Telefilms would hire "specialist" production professionals and equipments, thereby submitting that the criterion on which ESPN-Star Sports is deeming Zee Telefilms Ltd as ineligible is incorrect.
After the court's observation, however, Salve agreed that in case of strict adherence to tender conditions, none of the parties including Prasar Bharti would be eligible to get the telecast rights, as all are merely licensees and hire production units to telecast matches.
Salve also told the court that Zee Telefims is not debating on the experience criterion. None of the bidders are qualified in their individual capacity to get the telecast rights, he said.
"BCCI entertained our bid and it was highest," he said, stressing that Zee Telefilms Ltd's bid was deemed eligible by the Board.
Salve stressed that the whole case hinges on "production" criterion and added that Zee Telefilms Ltd had submitted to the BCCI documents supporting its "experience" of live telecast of cricket matches that it had done in the past.
The court, however, pointed out that the word "production" was conspicuously missing in the documents submitted by Zee Telefilms Ltd.
"Zee Telefilms Ltd's letter to BCCI says what they will do in future and not what they have done in the past," the court pointed out to Salve, while stating that the letter only mentioned telecast and not production.
Salve, earlier, told the court that Zee had offered to telecast the domestic league matches also which would support the game in the country.
Earlier, ESPN-Star Sports counsel Iqbal Chaggla, referring to SAB TV's argument about ESPN-Star Sports being a foreign entity in an intervention application filed on Thursday, told the court that even Zee Telefims Ltd has its registered offices in countries like the United States of America and United Kingdom.
The BCCI asked time for arguments and the court told it to put forward its submissions on Monday when its counsel, K K Venugopal, is expected to address the court.
ESPN-Star Sports is challenging the BCCI's decision to award the US $308 million telecast rights contract to Zee Telefilms Ltd for cricket matches to be played in India between October 2004 and September 2008.
The court, last week, had asked Zee Telefims whether it would go for a fresh bid which was turned down by the entertainment major.
The court is yet to look into the maintainability of the writ and the arguments will continue tomorrow. The court has also to decide on allowing intervention application of SAB TV which was moved yesterday.
