From correspondents in Delhi, India, 01:31 AM IST

Cricket buffs in India had reason to rejoice as the Delhi High Court Tuesday directed Nimbus Communications Ltd to share coverage of Wednesday's India-West Indies match with Doordarshan though with a seven-minute delay. The company was, however, asked to extend live coverage to All India Radio (AIR).

The court order came as a relief to millions of cricket fans who could not watch the telecast of the first match of the series Sunday owing to the standoff between the government and the private company on sharing live feed.

While directing the company to share its video feed of the match with Doordarshan, Justice S.K. Kaul refused to accept its plea to stay the government's order for mandatory sharing of the live feed of the game with public broadcasters Doordarshan and AIR.

Tuesday's order will be effective until Feb 8 when the matter will be heard again. The order will ensure that the entire series, which ends Jan 31, is telecast on Doordarshan as well.

'I am of the view that it would be delayed telecast of seven minutes, which is the minimal delay and would not affect the public in any way in watching cricket,' the judge said.

The sharing of delayed telecast was proposed by Nimbus counsel Harish Salve but the public broadcasting corporation Prasar Bharati had refused it.

Salve had contended that the guidelines 'passed by the government was without any authority of law' and it violated the company's intellectual property rights.

Nimbus, which had bagged the four-year BCCI telecast rights last year for $612 million, had challenged the government's uplinking guidelines to private broadcasters asking them to share the feed of sporting events of national interest with Doordarshan.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)