Supreme Court dismisses Star India plea

The Supreme Court has moved to safeguard free-to-air cricket in India, upholding a ruling that broadcasters of important sporting events must share their live feed, minus advertisements and sponsor logos, with the state-owned Prasar Bharati. This means broadcasters including Star India, which holds the rights to all of India's home international cricket as well as ICC events, will have to comply with the 2007 Sports Act under its original terms.

A two-judge bench comprising justices AK Sikri and PC Pant dismissed Star India's appeal against an October 2013 judgment of the Delhi High Court in a dispute with Prasar Bharati over certain provisions of the Sports Act.

The Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act stipulates that "no content rights owner or holder and no television or radio broadcasting service provider shall carry a live television broadcast on any cable or Direct-to-Home network or radio commentary broadcast in India of sporting events of national importance, unless it simultaneously shares the live broadcasting signal, without its advertisements, with Prasar Bharati to enable them to re-transmit the same on its terrestrial networks and Direct-to-Home networks in such manner and on such terms and conditions as may be specified."

Prasar Bharati had demanded a clean feed from broadcasters, free of advertisements and sponsor logos. Star had contended that it was possible only to remove advertisements, and not sponsor logos provided by the event organisers, such as the BCCI or ICC, embedded within components of the live match feed such as scorecards and graphics.

The Supreme Court ruled that these in-match sponsor logos were to be treated as advertisements, and dismissed the argument put forth by Star India that this was not the case, since it did not gain any revenue from the sponsors, as "specious".

While delivering its judgment, the bench highlighted the purpose of the Act, which was to "provide access to the largest number of listeners and viewers, on a free-to-air basis, of sporting events of national importance". While agreeing that private channels had gained popularity over time, the court held that Prasar Bharati's broadcasts reached "almost every nook and corner of the country" and were available "free of cost".

"It is for this reason that the law in the form of Sports Act is enacted in order to ensure that such sporting events of national importance are made available to every citizen of this country, irrespective of his/her financial conditions."