The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the Board of Control for Cricket in India would have to pay service tax for recording cricket matches, as it was a “service provider.”

The BCCI had moved the court against an order by the Central Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal directing it to pay Rs. 18 crore as service tax for recording matches between 2006 and 2010. The cricketing body argued that merely recording a match was not part of production of a programme, and could not be included as an act attracting service tax. It argued that camerapersons deployed just recorded the matches and this could not be described as production. But the court did not agree with the cricketing body’s arguments.

‘It is a service provider’

“The BCCI is [a] service provider. If this is not a service, then what else is? Whatever the BCCI does is a service,” Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu, heading a Bench including Justice A.K. Sikri, orally observed.

Justice Sikri said the recording of a cricket match eventually amounted to programming because the visuals were watched by millions of people. (The Hindu)