MUMBAI: Railtel Corp and Zee Entertainment have been at loggerheads for the past three years.

The bone of contention has been the cancellation of a 10 year contract that Zee’s subsidiary Margo Networks had signed with the former in March 2021 to provide content on demand (movies, news, music videos, and general entertainment) free of buffering onboard 8,731 trains including 5,723 suburban trains and more than 5,952 wi-fi-enabled railway stations. As part of this, media servers were to be installed in railway coaches.

The Railway Board had assigned Railtel with the task of implementing this dream project which had then subcontracted it to Margo. Revenue expectations were high with the Railways hoping to pocket at least Rs 60 crore as part of the 50:50 arrangement it had made with Railtel.

The project had moved to pilot implementation stage in a Rajdhani train and in an AC rake of the western railways.

And then it was called off suddenly in November 2021. Railtel said, it was due to the alleged non-performance of Margo Networks. Zee Entertainment had disagreed and announced that it would haul Railtel to the courts.

In August 2023, it started arbitration proceedings against Railtel for cancelling the contract and claimed amounts wrongfully forfeited by the latter along with costs/damages. The matter had been with the arbitral tribunal since then.

Zee Entertainment, on 26 November 2025, informed  the BSE in a regulatory filing, that the arbitral tribunal had made its arbitral award. As part of that, it had rejected its and Margo’s claims against Railtel. It added that the tribunal had  also rejected the counter claims made by Railtel.

Zee added that it is “evaluating the option of filing an application/appeal before the appropriate court for setting aside of the arbitral award.”

Clearly, we have not seen the last of this courtroom saga.