DHAKA, Aug 29: Bangladesh’s first private TV channel Ekushey Television (ETV) on Thursday lost a court battle to retain its licence, officials said.

The supreme court threw out a petition for a review of an earlier verdict which cancelled its operating licence, the attorney general’s office said.

A bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Mainur Reza Chowdhury, after six days of hearings rejected three petitions filed by ETV for a revision of the court’s July verdict upholding an earlier High Court rule cancelling the licence.

It was not clear if ETV would have to close down as it has already applied for a fresh licence from the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.

Officials at ETV were not available for comment, but the popular channel continued to be on air after the verdict without any news on the court development.

ETV broke decades of monopoly by state-run Bangladesh Television when it began broadcasting in 1999 under a licensing agreement with the then Awami League government.

In September 2000 two Dhaka University teachers and a journalist who support the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which ousted the Awami League after an election last year, filed a suit alleging the agreement between the government and ETV was illegal and deprived other qualified licence seekers.

ETV denied the allegation.

In March this year the high court declared the licence agreement illegal, leading to an appeal at the supreme court.

Newspapers and leading Bangladeshi personalities have appealed to the government not to shut down ETV.—AFP