The competitors have alleged that both Buddha Films and Zee Telefilms belong to the same group which is a violation of the tender conditions. Said Stracon India chief Siddharth Ray, ``Nobody can bid twice for the same tender. Prasar Bharati had rejected the earlier bid in the India-New Zealand series on similar grounds last year.'' Stracon and TWI made a combined bid of $98.5 million, followed by Nimbus's $85 million. The rights were for air time sales in the country and overseas territories.

Though Prasar Bharati opened the price bid on Monday, a final decision is expected to be taken after a couple of weeks. The tender committee will evaluate the respective bids and invite the parties for discussion before taking a final decision. For production rights, TWI-Stracon's bid was the lowest at Rs 22 crore for two years, in addition to 750,000 for giving digital flyaway kit. Nimbus made the same offer for Rs 48 crore while WorldTel's bid was for Rs 64 crore and BBC for Rs 68 crore.

While the marketing rights were for the entire four-and-a-half year period of contract which Prasar Bharati had obtained from the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the broadcasting corporation had decided to tender production rights for just two years. Sources in Doordarshan said the public broadcaster wanted to do production of the cricket matches on its own after two years. For the marketing rights, smaller agents made segmented bids for different territories. DD had allowed bids for different overseas territories.

DD will weigh various factors before taking a decision as it has made it clear in the tender that it would not necessarily be parting with the marketing rights to the highest bidder. For the production rights, DD will also not consider the lowest offer as the single criteria for selection. Though Zee has not been able to acquire telecast rights from any cricket board, the network has shown interest to grab the marketing rights from DD.