NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today issued notice to Nimbus Communications on a petition by Prasar Bharati challenging the order of the single bench last week permitting telecast of the ongoing one-day cricket series with West Indies with a seven-minute deferred telecast.

A Division Bench of the High Court headed by Chief Justice MK Sharma asked Nimbus, who own Neo Sports channel, to file their reply to the notice by 9 February.
The petition by Prasar Bharati has contended that the order of the single judge is violative of the principle of equitable justice as it treats viewers of satellite TV differently from those who receive signals terrestrially.

Earlier on 23 January, Justice SK Kaul had permitted Doordarshan to telecast the matches with a seven-minute deferred telecast. He had, however, permitted All India Radio to broadcast the commentary live.
The same court had a day later asked Nimbus to deposit Rs 55 million within a week, even as it gave the marketing rights to the former because it had said it could raise almost five times more than competing public broadcaster Prasar Bharati.

Meanwhile, the rights to market events on AIR’s 69 channels lies with Prasar Bharati, and the court will decide on the revenue sharing ratio on 10 February, when the rest of the contentious issues would also be taken up.

The court, however, held that though Prasar Bharati could stream the matches thorough its DTH platform, it would not allow any private DTH operator to access that and show the matches.