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Prasar Bharati has taken ESPN-Star Sports to court, accusing it of illegally using the ongoing Indo-Pak cricket series footage and raking in huge money by unauthorized booking of advertisements on programmes based on exclusive DD-Sports telecast.
The public broadcaster appealed to the Delhi high court to restrain ESPN-Star Sports and ESPN Software India Ltd and their employees, agents from using DD-Sports footage of India-Pakistan cricket matches in any manner whatsoever except for regular news bulletins as permitted under terms and conditions issued by Prasar Bharati.
During hearing of the matter before Justice Pradeep Nandrajog on Saturday, Prasar Bharati Counsel A S Chandhiok and Rajeev Sharma urged the court to direct ESPN not to carry any advertisements before, during and after such footage.
They also sought a direction to ESPN to render "true and correct accounts" to Prasar Bharati regarding the amounts received and/or income generated from using the video footage of the India-Pakistan cricket series.
ESPN counsel N Ganpathi gave an undertaking to the court that his clients would not use DD-Sports footage of Indo-Pak cricket matches till the next date of hearing (April 5) "without the express consent of the plaintiff (Prasar Bharati) except for purposes of footage in regular scheduled news bulletins".
The court also issued summons to ESPN Star Sports, ESPN Software India Ltd and BCCI asking them to respond to Prasar Bharati's allegations by Tuesday.