SC lets DD go ahead but puts BCCI on backfoot

• Like other sports federations, BCCI has sought the Ministry’s permission in the prescribed form before every foreign tour.

• Though it never needed any state funds, BCCI submitted to the discipline of filing its annual reports to the Sports Ministry.

The Supreme Court observed that these revelations belied the board’s claim in the earlier hearing that the team it selected was not ‘‘Team India’’ but ‘‘Team BCCI.’’

Justice S.N. Variava, a member of the five-judge bench hearing the matter, pointed out that BCCI would not have needed to take the Centre’s permission in that manner if its team was only of its club and not of the country as such. Citing an example, Justice Variava said if a club wanted to send its team abroad to play some match, it would only have to seek visa from the foreign country and not permission from the Government.

The bench agreed with Zee TV’s contention that BCCI should have disclosed its correspondence with the Government as it had a bearing on whether the writ petition was maintainable against it.

The ‘‘Team BCCI’’ claim took a further beating when Zee TV’s counsel Harish Salve produced an admission to the contrary made by the board on a petition filed by cricketer Mohinder Amarnath in 1989.

BCCI had then admitted that it ‘‘selected teams to represent India in test matches, official or unofficial, played in India or abroad.’’

At the end of all these arguments, the Court reserved its order on the maintainability of the writ petition challenging the ‘‘mala fide’’ cancellation of the tender process in which Zee TV had emerged as the highest bidder for telecast rights over all matches played in India in the next four years.

The bench headed by Justice Santosh Hegde, meanwhile, declined to intervene in the interim arrangements made by BCCI to give telecast rights to Prasar Bharati and marketing rights to Sony for the series with Australia and South Africa.

Government’s counsel Mohan Parasaran took pains to rebut the contention of BCCI’s counsel K.K. Venugopal that the board had never sought or obtained any recognition from the Ministry.

While admitting that there was no formal letter of recognition from the Sports Ministry, Parasaran said that correspondence showed that there was ‘‘a de facto recognition’’ of BCCI. It was ‘‘because of this recognition granted to BCCI that the team selected by BCCI is able to represent itself as Indian cricket team,’’ an affidavit filed by the Government said.