Kolkata: The Supreme Court on Monday declined a plea by senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy for conducting e-auction of the media rights for the Indian Premier League.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Mishra which also consists of Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chadrachud said that current process of awarding the media rights through the tendering process should be followed and e-auction directed. The eleventh edition of the popular T20 tournament would be held in April next year.
Parag Tripathi, a senior advocate representing the Committee of Administrators (CoA) batted for the ongoing tender process because he felt that it was good option as the bidders would submit their bids in a sealed envelope in order to win the media rights.
Nonetheless, Swamy’s plea of filing an interim application to bring into light the alleged collision and conspiracy on the part of a BCCI official, who also owns a news channel was accepted by the apex court.
Tweeted Swamy, “Today SC allowed me to file an IA to seek directions in the IPL auction’s conflict of interest of Rajiv Shukla as IPL chairman & Star TV bid.”
Earlier, CoA chief Vinod Rai was asked by the apex court to file an affidavit which would highlight the benefits of the tendering process over e-auction.
The response of the BCCI on Swamy’s plea for conducting e-auction to ensure more transparency in the system was sought by the Supreme Court on July 28.
Rai, the former CAG had earlier supported the idea of inviting closed bids. But, on the 11th of July, Swamy had approached the BCCI for conducting an e-auction of the media rights for the IPL.
He had said that the entire amount of money involved with the awarding of media rights of the IPL amounted to ₹30,000 crore and it should not be dealt in an, ‘opaque’ manner as the rights are to be designated for the next five years.
His petition had read, “This petition prays that the distribution of IPL rights, which is scheduled on July 17, 2017 should be done in the most transparent mode available, that is via E-Auction.”
The petition had also allegedly stated that the activities of the BCCI were handled with, ‘tacit concurrence’ of the state governments and the Centre, “who are not only fully aware but supportive of the activities of the Board.”
Swamy had pleaded, “It is a requirement that non-discriminatory and transparent method with the best international practices must be adopted for distribution of the valuable media rights so as to ensure the maximum revenue in the larger national interest.”
He had also allegedly hinted at attempts to establish a monopoly by obtaining the media rights in a non-transparent manner.
“Huge money is involved amounting to Rs. 25000-30000 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,” had claimed Swamy.