More IPL dirt: Govt seeks probe into black money play

Spot-fixing, the SRK stadium brawl and ban, molestation charges, rave parties and now black money — the Indian Premier League (IPL) continues to hurtle from one controversy to another. Chetan Chauhan reports. Sudhindra surfaces, ready to be quizzed

Updated on: May 22, 2012, 02:04:02 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Spot-fixing, the Shah Rukh Khan stadium brawl and ban, molestation charges, rave parties and now black money — the Indian Premier League (IPL) continues to hurtle from one controversy to another.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and income tax department have been asked to probe the presence of black money in the cash-rich league, sports minister Ajay Maken told Lok Sabha on Monday. The investigation comes even as the government has sought Rs 1,522 crore from the Board of Control for Cricket In India for alleged tax evasion.

Sports secretary Pradeep K Deb wrote to the finance ministry last week seeking a probe of IPL players receiving money through illegal channels, resulting in “serious implications”, Maken said.

The letter on financial irregularities in the BCCI and IPL — accessed by HT — says the ED has issued 19 showcause notices for violations under the Foreign Exchange Management Act amounting to Rs 1,077 crore. Five are against the Rajasthan Royals and the rest against the BCCI.

The biggest tax evasion amount against the BCCI is Rs 243.45 crore for payments made during IPL-2 matches in South Africa.

“Certain other contraventions have been revealed in connection with transactions between the BCCI and the State Bank of Travancore, Jaipur branch, in relation to remittances made and received by the board,” the ED has said in a confidential note to the government.

The letter also expresses concern over Rs 375 crore in income tax demanded from the BCCI after 2006, when its I-T exemption was revoked. So far, Rs 231 crore has been recovered from the board.

The subject came up in the House when the BJP’s Kirti Azad, a former cricketer, demanded a special audit of the IPL and BCCI by an independent agency when finance minister Pranab Mukherjee raised the black money issue.

Maken said a possible way out was bringing the BCCI under Right to Information, like other national sports federations. His draft bill envisaging the same is in limbo due to the government’s political compulsions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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