Zee Telefilms Ltd. v. Union of India (2005)

Citations:                       NOT AVAILABLE  

Date of Judgement:       2 February, 2005

Court:                            Supreme Court of India

Case Type:                    Constitutional law (Writ)
Appellant:                     Zee Telefilms Ltd. & Anr

Respondent:                  Union of India & Ors.
Bench:                     N.Santosh Hegde, S.N. Variava, B.P.Singh, H.K.Sema, S.B. Sinha

Referred:                         Article 12 of the Indian constitution

Facts:

• The petitioners in this case Zee Telefilms, is a well-established, popular, and a renowned sports channel. The Union of India, BCCI, the regulating body for Cricket in India; ESPN, another world-renowned sports channel are the respondents.
• On 7th August 2004, BCCI invited tenders for the auction of exclusive telecast rights for 4 years, for which both Zee and ESPN have given their biddings.
• After negotiations with both the bidders, BCCI accepted Zee’s bidding. Zee deposited a sum of Rs 92.50 crores with acceptance to the terms and conditions.
• Meanwhile, when ESPN in the Bombay High Court filed a writ petition against Zee, BCCI arbitrarily cancelled the telecast rights to Zee. Later, ESPN withdrew the petition on 21st September 2004.
• Hence, Zee Telefilms Ltd. approached the Supreme Court against BCCI regarding the cancellation of telecasting rights.

Legal Issues:

• Is the BCCI within the ambit of Article 12 of the Indian constitution?
• Does the violation of fundamental rights of Zee took place by the arbitrary action of the BCCI?

Ration & Decision:

• The concerned case was decided by a five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices N.Santosh Hegde, S.B. Sinha, S.N. Variava, H.K.Sema, and B.P.Singh.
• The court carefully observed that BCCI, though it enjoyed the monopoly status over the Cricket control, the state does not give or protect this monopoly through any statute.
• The court also found that BCCI is financially independent of the state, and the state does not hold any share in the board.
• The court finds with all these observations, no point in dealing with the contention that the respondents violated the petitioner’s fundamental rights.
• Only Justice Sinha gave the dissenting opinion that the BCCI board acted as a representative of the Government of India before the international community, and hence a State.

• Based on the observations mentioned above of the financial, administrative, and statutory autonomy of BCCI, it is not a ‘State’ within the meaning of “other bodies” under Article 12 of the Constitution of India.
• Hence, there is no question of the petitioner’s fundamental rights being arbitrarily violated by the BCCI.

Conclusion:

• The Court held that, through this five-judge bench, the Supreme Court has revisited the previous, well-settled rulings in two cases
  1. Pradeep Kumar Biswas vs. Indian Institute of Chemical Technology
     2) Sabhajit Tewary vs. UOI; 

clarifying all the ambiguity, and all the confusions which were previously arisen regarding the interpretation of “state” within the meaning of Article 12 of the constitution.

Reference:  

https://indiankanoon.org/doc/404603/

This article is written by Siddhant Raj of University of Allahabad, Intern in Legal Vidhiya.