SC refuses Swamy's plea for e-auction

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to direct BCCI to conduct e-auctioning of the telecast rights of the T-20 Indian Premier League (IPL) matches for five years from 2018.

A three-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice Dipak Misra rejected a plea made by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, after considering a submission of the Committee of Administrators led by former CAG Vinod Rai

Claiming that the present ongoing tender process was better suited by awarding the IPL media rights, Rai said it would maximise the revenue for the BCCI.

“The adoption of closed bid tender process for award of the IPL media rights is in the best interest of BCCI. The recommendations of the Lodha panel require that the tender process should be fair and transparent but do not stipulate that it should necessarily be an e-auction process,” Rai said in an affidavit.

As many as 24 companies, including Star India and Sony Pictures Network, have so far purchased bid documents to get the broadcast rights which are expected to fetch an unprecedented amount of over Rs 20,000 crore for the richest cricket board.

The broadcast rights are divided into three categories -- TV, mobile and internet. The deadline for submission of sealed bids is September 4.

The court closed the plea made by Swamy but allowed him to file an application highlighting the “alleged collusion and conflict of interest on behalf of the IPL chairperson Rajeev Shukla who also runs a channel.”