New Delhi, April 24
A special court here has rejected the CBI report for the closure of the probe in three corruption cases pertaining to the purchase of multi-crore World Cup cricket and Wimbledon and French Open tennis telecast rights by Prasar Bharati in 1999 and 1997, respectively, in which huge losses were allegedly caused to the public broadcaster.
The CBI had submitted a report for the closure of the cases against the then Prasar Bharati CEO K. S. Sharma and certain senior officers, claiming that no case was made out against them.
Special judge Dinesh Dyal, rejected the CBI report yesterday, holding that the agency had not probed the 2000 FIR in the case in right earnest.
The court said prima facie the facts of the case indicated a nexus between Doordarshan officials and officials of private broadcasters from whom the telecast rights were purchased by Prasar Bharati at much higher prices.
The court, after examining the CBI report, observed that there appeared to be no investigation regarding the deliberate delay in submitting the bid.
The initial offer was for $ 4.75 million, but Prasar Bharati officials failed to take a decision in this regard in time.
Doordarshan later had to purchase the telecast rights for $ 6 million from the private television channels, causing a huge loss to the public broadcaster, the FIR had alleged.
Similar losses were allegedly incurred in obtaining the telecast rights of Wimbledon and French Open tennis matches from private television networks in 1997.
The court said instead of probing the matter keeping in view the alleged losses caused by the accused, the CBI seemed to be more interested in probing the profit earned by Doordarshan.
The court allowed the CBI to close two more cases relating to the purchase of telecast rights of the 1997 Independence Cup and the 1998 ICC Knockout Cricket Tournament after the agency could not establish any case against the officials accused.
