Want early hearing Pay Rs 50 lakh, says Supreme Court

Taking note of the fact that corporate houses seek priority in hearing their cases, the Supreme Court on Friday asked corporates to deposit Rs 50 lakh each for hearing their dispute relating to rights over cricket-match information.

By passing such an order a bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Uday Lalit implemented the suggestion of Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi made on Thursday, that since the litigation of corporate houses are expedited when more than 60,000 cases are pending, the court should ask them to deposit exemplary costs before the matter could be heard.

Taking a cue from the A-G’s suggestion, the bench asked Star India and BCCI to pay a pre-deposit of Rs 50 lakh each, noting corporate cases were consuming a lot of time. “People file cases and take chances here without realising what will happen,” the bench said.

The bench also asked Idea Cellular, Akuate Internet and OnMobile Global to deposit Rs 50 lakh together.

When the counsel resisted the proposal, the CJI quipped, “It should be ideally 10 times the fees charged by senior advocates for one hearing, it should be Rs 1 crore since you take Rs 10 lakh per hearing. Corporate matters are taking a lot of time. You must make some payment. We will hear your case after you make the deposit.”

It gave four weeks time to the parties to make the deposit with SC registry and said the case will be heard in July subject to the payment made. In its appeal Star India argued that since it has paid for exclusive media rights to BCCI, others should not be allowed to disseminate contemporaneous information. The HC had declined the broadcaster’s plea.