The company has asked for further time to clear off the dues. Mukta Arts will wait till the end of this month before deciding on whether to resell the rights to another satellite channel. Said Mukta Arts executive director Parvez Farooqui, "B4U was supposed to pay us off last week. We have agreed to give them time before we take a decision." Mr Shah's arrest may have affected B4U's payment schedule.

According to the deal signed mid-2000, Windmill Holding, a Mauritius-based sister company of B4U Multimedia, was to pay $3.13 million (around Rs 14 crore) for the Subhash Ghai library of eight movies. The company had paid a signing amount of $0.25 million (around Rs 1 crore) while the balance was to be paid last week, Mr Farooqui said.

Mukta Arts had entered into a deal with the Mauritius-based company as it wanted to get benefits of an export status. The rights, Mr Farooqui said, were sold for screening in the domestic market on the B4U channel.

While Taal and Pardes were given two-year rights for two telecasts each, the older movies of Mr Ghai were sold for three years with a right to screen two telecasts in one year.

Mukta Arts has also sold the overseas satellite rights of Taal and Pardes to Eros International, owned by the promoters of B4U. The rights will expire in a year's time, said Mr Farooqui.

Mr Ghai has not sold the cable rights to anybody yet as he believes that the prices will increase. "We are not negotiating with anyone for our cable rights. We expect the price will go up and cable rights will become as big as satellite rights. We are also holding on to the video and Internet rights," said Mr Farooqui.

Mukta Arts has sold to Tips the music rights of Yaadein for around Rs 10 crore. While the domestic rights were sold for Rs 6.5 crore, the overseas rights were for around Rs 2.5 crore. Tips will have to spend Rs 1 crore for promotion of the music. Domestic music rights of Rahul has been sold for Rs 2.5 crore. The overseas rights are sold to Dashmesh, a sister company of Tips, for $0.1 million. "The overseas rights are sold to Dashmesh for export benefits," said Mr Farooqui.