The company, owned by the Times of India Group, splashed out US$58 million to secure the rights through to the end of 2014, according to the IPL governing council for the Twenty20 cricket competition.

The bids were opened in the presence of Justice Mukul Mudgal under the orders of the Supreme Court due to an ongoing dispute between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and World Sport Group (WSG), its estranged sports marketing partner.

Any rights fees paid by Times Internet Limited to the BCCI will be kept in an escrow account until the dispute with WSG is resolved. WSG has filed a formal complaint after the BCCI, citing financial irregularities, ripped up a commercial agreement contract struck between the agency and now-suspended IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.

Although WSG had asked the Supreme Court to prevent the tender from being issued, it still welcomed the order to freeze any payments to the BCCI. “In effect, the order protects our long-term rights and that of our partners, and also our revenues pending the final legal outcome of the case, and that is what we had sought to preserve,” Seamus O'Brien, chairman and chief executive of WSG, said in a statement released to ESPNcricinfo.

The statement also reiterated that the agency will take “whatever further actions are necessary around the world and particularly in key markets to protect its rights and interests, and that of its licensees who have invested in the success of the IPL, as a result of the illegal termination of its agreements by the BCCI, and their subsequent actions”. The 2011 edition of the IPL will start on April 8.