| On its part the ESS counsel argued that there was nothing
in writing about Zee submitting a bid of $308 million. "We had
submitted an alternative bid of $308 million for five years. We were
not asked for our best bid. We were simply told by Mr (BCCI supremo
Jagmohan) Dalmiya to reduce the time period from five to four years.
Then the bid is yours. The written bid of Zee is for $281 million."
"Also through correspondence on 30 July, the BCCI had told
PwC about their limited role in merely tabulating the bids well
before the tender process was open. Despite that the BCCI mentioned
in the tender that PwC would examine the bids for eligibility. In
fact PwC did not charge a fee due to their limited role and in the
interests (sic) of cricket."
The counsel argued that by giving the bid to Zee, the BCCI had
changed its stance about the production issue. It merely waited
to see who had the most money and then prayed that the concerned
party would do a good job. He added that Zee themselves had stated
that they had been approached by four production houses. "The
tender process specifically looked at weeding out a party that would
rely on outside help for production. In India we have 35 qualified
people as a part of our production unit. We also have four non linear
editing suites."
He also argued that the BCCI affidavit that ESS was ineligible
on the production front did not hold water. "We have our own
production team. It stands to reason, however, that we would not
personally own every piece of equipment. It does not make sense
for us to carry it around form one country to the other. We basically
hire it from local companies. The packaging and presentation is
all done by us."
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