ED in its status report said Sony and Star TV companies had entered into agreements with at least eight companies for promoting their advertisements, even though the advertisers were "not eligible" to give the same to any overseas TV media. A division bench comprising Justice Usha Mehra and Justice K Ramamoorthy after perusing the report, disposed of a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking inquiry into the alleged Fera violations by these TV companies.

However, the court directed Zee to file its reply by January 21. Zee had challenged ED proceedings against it. Zee's counsel Pratibha Singh contended that her client had been "unnecessarily" harassed for the past five years by the ED, while the investigation against the two other TV channels was completed just in 10 months.

The PIL, filed by one Ajay Jain alleged that Zee, Star and Sony, which are foreign companies, had taken out of the India foreign exchange worth Rs 3,500 crore since 1993, earned as revenue from advertisements.

Mr Jain's counsel had contended that since these TV channels had no uplinking facilities within the country, they were not eligible to take direct advertisements from export houses in India. While Zee and Star were uplinking from Hong Kong, Sony had the same facility from Singapore, he said. The petitioner had further alleged that Zee had booked advertisements for a sum of Rs 387.27 crore for the year 1998-99 and Sony had grossed Rs 220 crore for the same year.

Sony had done advertisement booking of almost Rs 67 crore for the quarter of 1999-2000, the PIL claimed.