SC issues notices to I

New Delhi, Jan 3 (UNI) The Supreme Court today issued notices to the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry and Doordarshan on an application filed by ESPN STAR Sports seeking interim directions against the respondents for insisting sharing its exclusive feed of the Indian cricket team's tour of South Africa.

A bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice Dalveer Bhandari issued the notices returnable by Saturday following which the case will be taken up for a hearing on January 8.

The petitioner in its application has contended that the order issued by the government -- making it compulsory for it to share the feed of international matches and tournaments with DD in public interest -- was illegal and hence cannot be enforced through an executive order which is already under challenge before this court.

The ESPN STAR Sports has been demanding money for sharing its exclusive feed of international matches.

Interestingly, today is the second day of the last Test match between India and South Africa and by the time the application comes up for hearing the series will be over.

According to the petitioner, downlinking guidelines permitting the public broadcaster to downlink the signals of the matches without paying anything are ultravires and totally illegal.

The petitioner has also contended that DD only wanted to make money and was not really interested whether the viewing public -- not having access to cable TV -- saw the cricket matches or not.

Therefore, the channel said, DD chose not to take the feed of the petitioner and unless the court protected the petitioner by appropriate interim order the respondents may resort to invoking the penal provisions under clause six of the downlinking guidelines against the petitioner.

The applicant also contended that the respondent had acted arbitrarily under the guidelines as they chose not to seek any feed from the Zee Telefilms Limited for the triangular series featuring India, Australia and West Indies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the ground that such matches were within ''show cricket types''.

UNI