Subramanian Swamy Files Plea For E-auction Of IPL Broadcasting Rights [Read Petition]

Seeking a transparent mechanism for auction of telecast rights of IPL cricket matches for the next five years, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court and sought the court to pass an order for e-auctioning of IPL media rights.

Swamy questioned the manner in which the rights worth Rs,  25,000 – 30,000 crore of Indian Premier League (IPL) were being distributed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and mentioned before the bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) JS Khehar for early hearing of the matter. The BCCI has fixed the auction on July 17.

The CJI agreed to hear the matter sometime in this week.

“There  is a requirement of non-discriminatory and transparent method, with the best international practices, to be adopted for distribution of the valuable media rights so as to ensure the maximum revenue in the larger national interest,” the plea stated.

According to Swamy, “the commercial interests and 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 the revenue and prevent vested interest from making undue gains”. He sought that the present practice be discouraged.

In the plea, Swamy cited various orders of the apex court after finding irregularities committed by country’s apex cricket body. The BCCI was found having irregularities, illegalities, misappropriation and asymmetries in the functioning, so Supreme Court formed Mudgal Committee as an investigator and then further based on its report concerning the issues and corruption in BCCI and IPL, the Lodha Committee was formed on January 22, 2015, by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court appointed a four-member committee of administrators headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai to run the affairs of the BCCI and implement court-approved recommendations of the Justice RM Lodha panel on reforms on January 30, 2017.