The Supreme Court on Friday slapped a fine of Rs 50 lakh each on Star India Private Limited and BCCI for wasting court’s time, saying that big corporate houses must acknowledge the value of court’s time. Three other respondents including telecom operator Idea Cellular have been asked to deposit a sum total of Rs 50 lakhs.
The court was hearing a petition filed by the channel challenging a Delhi High Court order refusing to grant exclusive rights to Star for cricket updates.
The bench of Chief Justice of India, and Justice UU Lalit also relied upon the suggestion given by the Attorney General on Thursday, to pre-deposit cost in order to restrict unwarranted appeals by corporate big fish from clogging the system.
CJI Thakur said that the cost will be released to the party that succeeds in the litigation that has been going for many years.
In its petition, Star India had claimed to have exclusive “property rights” over match information, saying that commercial competitors like Idea were exploiting it by disseminating updates through SMS etc, for a nominal fee.