New Delhi: The BCCI was issued a notice by the Supreme Court on Friday on BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s plea of organizing an e-auction of the IPL media rights to ensure more transparency in the process.
The Justice Dipak Mishra headed bench now awaits a response on this from the BCCI in two weeks time and has posted the matter for the 24th of August.
The auction of the IPL media rights would be held on the 17th of August and the rights would be with the highest bidder for five years.
Swamy said that the Supreme Court had earlier told that the best process of giving contracts was through e-auctions.
He also said that transparency should be maintained in this issue as a sum of ₹30,000 crore is involved in the awarding of IPL media rights.
He said, “There is a requirement of non-discriminatory and transparent method, (in line) with the best international practices, to be adopted for distribution of valuable media rights so as to ensure maximum revenue in the larger national interest.”
He further added, “The commercial interests and huge money is involved, amounting to Rs 25,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore, in the valuable rights associated with the game of cricket in India, which makes it mandatory to have a robust, completely transparent auction method to maximise revenue and prevent vested interest from making undue gains.”