BAI gets high court boost on IBL 2

The path of hosting the second edition of the Indian Badminton League (IBL) has got a temporary reprieve after the Delhi High Court withheld an injunction requested by Sporty Solutionz.

The court on Tuesday declined to grant any injunction order, as requested by Sporty Solutionz Pvt. Ltd. (SSPL), adjourning the case till December 10. The Badminton Association of India (BAI), which will be organising the tournament, meanwhile has to file its reply to the petition.

"We are content with the latest development in our legal matter with Sporty Solutionz. The Honourable High Court has decided to withhold the injunction requested by Sporty Solutionz on the organisation of the second season of the IBL," BAI president and IBL chairman Akhilesh Das Gupta said.

"This means we are free to organise the league as originally envisioned and are sparing no effort to make sure it goes ahead as planned. The BAI is the government recognised federation for badminton in India and badminton is solely BAI's intellectual property. We have full faith in the Indian judicial system and are confident the matter will be settled in our favour."

The agreement between BAI and Sporty Solutionz was terminated by the former after IBL-1 as Sporty Solutionz "was found guilty of various breaches". With this termination, IBL 2 could not be organised in 2014 and 2015.

SSPL was the inaugural IBL's commercial partners and had pleaded for the protection of the tournament's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to the high court. SSPL had filed the plea on October 17 but made the news public by sending a statement right when the BAI launched the second season of IBL here on October 29.

The second edition of IBL has been planned to be held in January 2016.