Struggling for its survival, Hyderabad-based Deccan Chronicle newspaper looks for a “good ball” from the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) to hit its crises out of boundary.
A Bombay High Court appointed arbitration tribunal had found illegal the termination of the Deccan Chargers IPL team by the BCCI and awarded its promoters, DCHL, substantive damages and compensation to the tune of Rs 4800 crore. The Deccan Chronicle however puts the figure at Rs 8000 crore; possibly the biggest award in sporting arbitration history.
The newspaper group gradually saw a downfall though its owner Venkattram Reddy even made it to India Today‘s list of India’s most powerful people in 2008. For the last many months, the paper had failed to pay even salary to its employees.
The discovery of the bank fraud saw the paper’s assets being attached, its Chairman being raided, and the paper virtually changing management at the behest of its 37 lenders, which included Canara Bank and Andhra Bank. Reddy and his associates were briefly arrested in 2015.
In 2017, the National Company Law Tribunal approved the resolution plan submitted by Kolkata-based Srei group, one of the 37 lenders. The Kanorias who run Srei, took control of Deccan Chronicle, the newspaper founded by Rajagopal Mudaliar in the 1930. The company appointed its own directors which included journalist and trade union leader Sabina Inderjit, and brought in Aditya Sinha as editor to replace M.J. Akbar’s (and Reddy’s) appointee, A.T. Jayanti.
The Bangalore and Kerala editions were closed recently.
The cricket board had cancelled its Deccan Chargers IPL franchise, six years ahead of schedule, when it failed to furnish a bank guarantee of Rs 100 crore from a nationalised bank in 2012.
The newspaper group is desperately eyeing on the next ball of the cricket board that is yet to take a final call of moving to the court of law to challenge the decision. The paper has much to celebrate because the arbitration amount is magically the same amount it owes lenders.
