Supreme Court asks BCCI to settle dispute with WSG

 The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the BCCI and its estranged partner, World Sport Group (WSG), to resolve their dispute through a civil suit or arbitration.

A bench comprising Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik said that main dispute over the media rights of IPL T20 matches was still not before them or any court.

"Main dispute is not before us. Matter would have to go either before a court or arbitrator or for mediation. Choice of court or mediation is yours. You do, we would save your interests," the bench said.

It also said that BCCI would continue to operate the award of the IPL telecast rights given to Times Internet. The apex court further held that the amount received by BCCI from the tender of the global telecast rights of IPL T20, for which WSG is claiming rights, would be kept in the escrow account till the final outcome.

"Amount shall continue in fixed deposit till there is an adjudication between appellant (BCCI) and respondent (WSG) by a competent court or arbitration tribunal," the bench said.

Besides, it added that every six months the cricket body will file before it the details of the escrow account along with a list of money received and withdrawn.

The apex court asked the BCCI to hand over a report filed by former Punjab & Haryana Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal, who was appointed by as the court observer for the tenders invited by the BCCI for the global telecast rights for T20.

During the proceedings, the bench asked WSG and BCCI "to sit together to resolve differences".

Responding to that, senior advocate C A Sundaram representing BCCI alleged the WSG was a shadow of former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.

"We do not want to deal with these persons at all who have committed fraud. They (WSG) have taken USD 80 million in collusion with Lalit Modi. Even Enforcement Directorate (ED) is saying so. ED is now looking for the percentage in this deal," he added.

Senior advocate K K Venugopal, representing WSG, also said that mediation was not possible as BCCI "was still throwing mud on them".

He further said that fraud was committed by BCCI, which awarded the contract directly to Sony group by cancelling their contract.

On March 18, the apex court had given go-ahead to BCCI to commence the bidding of global telecast rights for IPL T20.

The BCCI had floated tenders for global TV broadcast rights - along with mobile, Internet and radio - for IPL match between 2011 and 2014 but WSG has challenged the move.

BCCI is embroiled in a legal tussle with WSG that had initially bagged the global broadcast rights for countries outside the Indian subcontinent.

BCCI had invited bids for worldwide TV broadcast, excluding territories of the Indian sub-continent, Australia, South Africa, the Middle-East, the Caribbean, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Multi Screen Media (MSM), owner of Set Max TV channel, holds the Indian sub-continent broadcasting rights of the domestic T20 league until 2017.

BCCI had signed a deal with WSG in 2008 for USD 1 billion for the IPL broadcast rights. It was revised upwards toRs. 8,200 crore when MSM came on board.

However, in June last year, a new deal was renegotiated between the BCCI and MSM which kept WSG out of the broadcast deal. It was done after the board uncovered alleged financial irregularities in the award of contract by Modi.

WSG has challenged BCCI's decision to scrap their contract last year over the alleged payment of facilitation fee of Rs. 450 crore to ex-IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi.

In earlier hearing, the Supreme Court had held that the money which BCCI would get from the bidding would be kept in an Escrow account and the sports marketing company WSG would withdraw it to fulfill its commercial agreements.

The apex court had said, however, that the bids will not be finalised pending the outcome of the dispute between the two, which began last April with IPL chairman Lalit Modi's ouster.

Supreme Court's direction had come over a petition filed by BCCI challenging the order of the Bombay High Court, which granted a limited stay on the tendering process after observing that the parties were still squabbling over whether to go in for arbitration.

BCCI claimed that the interim stay given by the High Court amounted to enforcing the contract with WSG, as it would have to choose between broadcasting the league matches through the WSG or not at all.