TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2013 (10) TMI 1588
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....n organizing sporting events and recoup the revenue spent, through advertisements and sale of rights related to the event; the scope of the writ petition is said to be limited to television broadcasting rights. 3. Claiming to have acquired the broadcasting rights for the Indian Territory from International Cricket Council to broadcast cricket events organized by International Cricket Council, the petitioner states that it receives the feed from the organizer of the event which becomes the broadcast when the live signal is uploaded and downloaded and using the spectrum permitted to be used by the Government of India it reaches the consumer through the television set. 4. The issue concerns the legal obligation of the petitioner to share the live broadcasting signal with the first respondent: Prasar Bharti Broadcasting Corporation of India, a statutory corporation constituted under the Prasar Bharti (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990. 5. The petitioner principally seeks a declaration that its obligation to share live broadcast signals of sporting events of national importance with respondent No.1 is discharged by it sharing the live broadcast signal as per the feed made ....
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....No.1 of cricket matches organized by International Cricket Council. By a follow up letter dated March 14, 2013, the petitioner informed the respondent No.1 that the live signals it would be sharing would contain added features comprising of commercial elements; which letters were responded to by the respondent No.1 on April 06, 2013 informing that the obligation of the petitioner, as a right holder in the content broadcast live, had to be clean without any commercials. 8. Petitioner informed the respondent No.1 that its obligation under the law was to share the live broadcast signal as it was received by it from the copyright owner of the broadcast i.e. the sporting event organizer; and since the feed received by it contain certain advertisements by the organizer of the sporting event, the petitioner's obligation were limited to share the signal as it is and that the petitioner had no control over the live signals received. 9. In a nut shell the petitioner argued with the respondent No.1 that it had no control over the live signals received from the site from the organizer of the event and that the expression 'its advertisements' in Section 3 of Sports Broadcast Signals (Mandator....
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....dcast signal of a sporting event of national importance broadcast in India with Prasar Bharti without 'its advertisements' so as to enable Prasar Bharti to re- transmit the same on its terrestrial networks and Direct-to-Home networks, in such manner and on such terms and conditions as may be specified. 13. Sub-Section 2 and sub-Section 3 of Section 3 lay down the boundaries of the terms and conditions referred to in sub-Section 1 of Section 3 i.e. the percentage of advertisement revenue sharing between the contents right owner or holder and Prasar Bharti. 14. Since spectrum is used in broadcasting services, and as held by the Supreme Court in the decision reported as (1995) 2 SCC 161 Secretary Ministry of Information & Broadcasting Vs. Cricket Association of India, the air waves or frequencies are public property and thus their use can be controlled and regulated by a public authority, in the interest of the public, and to prevent the invasion of the public right thus the petitioner did not dispute the sovereign right of the State to control and regulate the use of the air waves or frequencies in a manner consistent with public interest; one of which could be to allow broadcast a....
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....nd as to in what manner, and by what process of reasoning, Rule 5 is violative of Section 3, for the reason the Rule in question simply obliges the content right owner or the holder or a broadcast service provider to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Act. Now, even if Rule 5 was not to exist, it would be the duty of everybody concerned with television broadcast to comply with the provisions of the Sports Broadcast Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) Act, 2007. Thus, the Rule makes explicit, by putting it in writing, what even otherwise would exist in law. 20. The mixed metaphor of the argument of the petitioner, on being filtered by us, to bring clarity to the argument, was that the expression 'its advertisements' in sub-Section 1 of Section 3 referred to the advertisements of the broadcaster and excluded the advertisements of the event owner. So read, the argument would proceed to reason further that the obligation under Rule 5 would be met if the broadcaster in India did not insert its advertisements in the broadcast while sharing the same simultaneously with Prasar Bharti. The terminus ad quem of the argument was that if Rule 5 was read as casting an oblig....
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....g two. The only one meaning is that the live broadcast signals have to be without any advertisements for the reason the rules of English grammar guide us that the subject of (the single sentence) sub-Section 1 of Section 3, is 'the content right owner or holder or radio broadcasting service provider' and the three words 'without its advertisements‟ are a sub-clause constituting a condition and since the three words immediately follow the words 'live broadcasting signal' they have to be, plainly read, as a condition concerning the live broadcast signal and not the content right owner or holder or radio broadcasting service provider; meaning thereby, whosoever airs a live television broadcast of sporting events of national importance must share the same without any advertisements inserted with Prasar Bharti. 27. We need not discuss the effect of the petitioner having no control over the live signals and the effect of the legislative provision i.e. Section 3(1), casting an obligation upon the petitioner which is impossible of being performed by the petitioner or obliges the petitioner to violate its contractual obligations with the copyright owner of the broadcast, for the reas....