In a letter to the Prasar Bharati CEO, a copy of which is available with The Financial Express, Doordarshan's deputy director general (finance) PK Seth has proposed that "as a result of the controversy generated by Nimbus, Rs 7.50 crore drawn from Doordarshan's account is not likely to be refunded through correspondence with these parties and some effective legal measures have to be taken".

According to Seth, Prasar Bharati should consult its legal counsels and additional solicitor general who have been associated with the existing legal cases relating to telecasting rights for the World Cup.

Significantly, Seth has stated in his letter that he wants to slap a Rs 5 crore defamation suit on Nimbus for false allegations regarding dwindling of funds worth Rs 20 crore.

Seth referred to some of therecent newspaper reports in which Nimbus president and executive director Harish Thawani had said that the DD official would have to explain the vanishing of Rs 20 crore. Seth has stated in his letter that any delay in the matter may create further complications besides causing a recurring revenue loss of about Rs 35,000 by way of interest to the state exchequer.

The Rs 7.5 crore was drawn from DD's accounts for the payment of licence fee to the English Cricket Board. The amount had to be drawn as Nimbus had only given a guarantee of Rs 13.5 crore, while it expected DD to transfer Rs 12.54 crore clients' advance paid to Stracon earlier in its favour.

DD sources said that any clients' advance has a liability attached to it and clients' advance paid to Stracon could not have been directly transferred to Nimbus by Doordarshan since it was a contractual agreement between the former and the advertisers.