Cricket & courts: Coming full circle

It was 7.30 pm on Monday, November 8, 1993. We were preparing to pack up for the day. As private secretary to India’s information and broadcasting minister, the average working day was a challenging 8.30 am-9.30 pm. But at 7.30 pm that Monday there was unexpected and unanticipated news of gloom. Panicky senior civil servants barged into the minister’s office, disrupting an ongoing meeting, to convey that a “contempt of court” notice had just been received from the Calcutta high court directing the minister to be physically present before the bench the very next day, Tuesday, November 9, at 10.30 am, when the high court began the day’s proceedings; and failure by the Delhi VVIP to comply with that direction might lead to the possibility of being put behind bars.

Before one could seek any clarification on the “point of law” involved in the “contempt of court” and the connection, if any, of the minister to it, the grim-faced secretary of the ministry (who was handling the matter) advised that first the “contempt” issue be tackled head-on in the Calcutta high court the next day, and to leave the “substantive issue”, if any, to be dealt with later. It was an advisory for “immediate and short-term” relief. The Cricket Association of Bengal had apparently raised some issues before the Calcutta high court (which were to have long-term consequences), challenging the monopoly rights of the state regarding “cricket match broadcasting”. It was a challenge by a private state cricket association for “television rights” — both for “uplink” and “downlink” — and to be directly dealt with, and operated, by private companies, instead of monopoly broadcasting rights by Doordarshan, that came under the I&B ministry. It was a new “money-spinning game” in the guise of taking the game of cricket to every Indian home through “satellite TV rights” across the country. The Cricket Association of Bengal took upon itself the responsibility to do it, as the Government of India was challenged by the businessman-run state cricket body. It was purportedly for a five-nation cricket tournament called “Hero Cup” to commemorate the CAB’s diamond jubilee. However, the long-term goal was to snatch away of the multi-million-dollar television broadcasting rights from the government by private players for the 50-over one-day World Cup 1996 to be held in India. It was an audacious attempt to change the constitutional provisions bestowed on the Government of India, through a judicial verdict.

Only a few in the I&B ministry realised the long-term gravity of the situation. Private enterprise, in the form of a state cricket body, was challenging the Constitution, thus trying to undermine the sovereign power and duty of the Centre. Yet this brazen and brash defiance by a state cricket body had supporters galore and highly appreciated by some (even) within the Government of India, claiming themselves to be “ardent cricket fans”. An irony indeed! A few of the very government people who were to act as the custodian of the supreme law of land showed not only their ignorance of the Constitution, but also seemed utterly indifferent, and unwilling, to even take note of the salient legal features that needed to be preserved and protected.

Unfortunately, that was not to be as the nation too seemed about to be hooked to the glitz and glamour of cash-power generated through electronic media broadcasting rights and advertisement revenue, and the consequential opium-like effect it was to bring to the shorter version of 50-50 day-night cricket matches with the arrival of the era of “globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation”. From the “best of times”, it was soon to be the “worst of times” for the government-owned electronic media.

A few who were aware of the Constitution and its clauses repeatedly tried to point out that it didn’t allow broadcasting to be in the hands of private bodies or individuals, but that simply fell on the deaf years of the Indian ruling class. So much so that a determined Cricket Association of Bengal, with the solid backing of the BCCI and the strong “cricket lobby” of various regional centres, repeatedly took recourse to the higher judiciary and got favourable verdicts, thus breaking the monopoly broadcasting rights of the Central government.

Understandably, none of the “cricket-loving” or “cricket controlling” petitioners too was overly concerned about the Constitution. One-day cricket was the cash cow of the future. A few people, however, argued for the government thus: in the Constitution, there is the Seventh Schedule, under which falls three lists. Each list has several entries — these are not powers, but fields of legislation. Since the three lists are categorised as Union List, State List and Concurrent List, the language of the respective entries that fall under them must be given the widest scope.

Thus, under “Entry 31”, broadcasting fell under the Union List. As mentioned earlier, once the Union List prescribes the list of legislation, broadcasting in this case, the very idea of taking on the Centre’s powers, responsibility and jurisdiction was at best a bad omen and at worst a highly controversial (or unethical) enterprise of those who went to the highest judiciary to change the constitutional provisions through “case law”.

It is indeed an irony that the very judiciary, whose rulings had paved the way for the rise of cricket bodies and the BCCI and made them cash-rich entities in the last decade of the 20th century, is now trying to put the BCCI’s house in order as the latter appears to be in no mood to comply fully with the verdict of the Supreme Court! This open tug-of-war between the BCCI and the Supreme Court pertaining to “issues” and “subjects” only takes one’s mind back to the 1990s. Why could not the executive, legislature and judiciary have acted then What made them so “liberal” as to have opened up such a vast ocean of unmanageable channels, which can neither be monitored nor checked, as in the case of rabid fanaticism and subversive activities being carried out by at least a few of them Under the umbrella of cricket, the “Entry 31” of the Seventh Schedule’s Union List, which had been breached 20 years ago, has today come full circle in an era of “liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation”, as the same Supreme Court is now forced to intervene. And quite rightly so!

The writer is a Supreme Court advocate. The views expressed here are personal.