Swamy had sought for e-auction according to reforms suggested by Justice Lodha Committee to ensure transparency.
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to go ahead with a "closed tender process" to allot media rights of the Indian Premier League for next five years.
In response to a plea filed by Member of Parliament Subramanian Swamy asking for e-auction of the IPL media rights, the Apex court ruled that e-auction isn't a must and that it will not interfere with the media rights process.
Swamy had sought for e-auction according to reforms suggested by Justice Lodha Committee to ensure transparency.
The panel had questioned the age-old closed tender process in 2016 and suggested the transparent e-auction as the way ahead for IPL rights that will be awarded from 2018.
A three-judge bench — Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Justices DY Chandrachud and AM Khanwilkar — refused to entertain the plea filed by Swamy.
The 11th edition of the IPL is scheduled to start in April next year. A total of 24 companies have expressed interest in bidding for the IPL media rights. But there are only two serious bidders — Star India and Sony — for the TV rights.
Apart from Star and Sony, world renowned companies such as Amazon Seller Services, Followon Interactive Media, Taj TV India, Times Internet, Supersport International, Reliance Jio Digital, Gulf DTH FZ LLC, GroupM Media, beIN, Econet Media, SKY UK, ESPN Digital Media, BTG Legal Services, BT PLC, Twitter and Facebook Inc are eager to grab BCCI's internet rights.
Temporary arrangement
BCCI insiders told DNA that closed bids could be a temporary arrangement (media rights for 2018-2022) as with more number of bidders in the future may force it to go for e-auctions.
"Closed tender process is the best way to 'price discovery'," said a senior BCCI official, adding: "May be, if there are more bidders, then e-auctions could well be a better option."
Swamy's contention before the Court was that "huge money is involved amounting to Rs 25,000-30,000 crore in the valuable rights associated with the game of cricket in India which makes it mandatory to have the auction process robust, completely transparent, in order to maximise revenue and prevent vested interests from making undue gains".
However, with the chairman of Committee of Administrators Vinod Rai, backing BCCI's plea of inviting closed bids, it was more or less clear that Swamy's plea may not yield any results.
The matter got complicated after Dish TV chairman Jawahar Goel wrote to Ministry of Information and Broadcasting arguing that "if Star India managed to get broadcast rights of IPL then a monopolistic situation in the sports broadcasting market would force viewers and subscribers to pay very high subscription rates".
The three categories in which the rights are divided are as follows: Indian Sub-continent Television Rights, Indian Sub-continent Digital Rights and Rest of the world (ROW) Media Rights.
The submission date for the Invitation To Tender (ITT) has been re-scheduled for September 1. And the final decision of awarding the rights would now be taken on Sept. 4 in Mumbai.
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