BCCI budgets Rs. 330.32 crore to fight IPL fixing-betting case in Supreme
Court (Exclusive)
By Qaiser
Mohammad Ali (Mail Today)
New Delhi,
December 23, 2014: Jittery BCCI mandarins seem to have anticipated that the
ongoing high-profile 2013 IPL betting-fixing case in the Supreme Court would
drag on for a long period and that’s probably why it has earmarked a fund just
to meet the expenses, including a huge lawyers’ bill.
The BCCI, the
richest cricket board in the world, has set aside an exigency fund of Rs. 330.32
crore, specifically to meet the expenses of this case. This amount, according
to a top BCCI source, is part of Rs. 1,150.67 crore that the BCCI has invested
in Fixed Deposits (FDs) in banks.
If BCCI
officials had indeed anticipated a long drawn battle in the complicated case,
in which a lot is at stake for sidelined president N. Srinivasan, his
son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, and IPL franchises — Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan
Royals, they were not off target.
“That is why
the Board has kept aside a specific fund for the ongoing case in the Supreme Court.
If all of this Rs. 330.32 crore is not utilised, the leftover amount will be
used for some other meaningful purpose,” the source told Mail Today. “So, after
Rs. 330.32 crore is taken out of the total of Rs. 1,150.67 crore invested in
the FDs, the Board is actually left with only Rs. 785 crore,” he stressed,
hinting at a none-too-happy situation so far funds are concerned.
The source
further disclosed: “The BCCI currently has $18.5million approximately (Rs. 116.90
crore) Exchange Earners' Foreign Currency Account (EEFC) while there is Rs. 134
crore in the various savings accounts.”
The Supreme
Court case, being fought on a PIL filed by unrecognised Cricket Association of
Bihar (CAB), has now gone on for almost one-and- a-half years. However, the
arguments by the parties are now over and the two-member bench, comprising
Justices T.S. Thakur and Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla, has reserved the
judgement, which is expected to be delivered early next month when the court
reopens after the winter vacation.
The
BCCI/Srinivasan have hired the services of some of the top-of-the-line lawyers
like Kapil Sibal and C.A. Sundram, and the Board realised that it would
particularly need a large fund to meet their lawyers’ fees and related sundry
expenses, like travelling etc. This case and other court battles, besides a
spate of tax demands running into hundreds of crores of rupees and arbitration
proceedings against several clients, has forced the BCCI on the back foot and
juggle its funds.
This is
corroborated by BCCI’s decision to break many of its Fixed Deposit Receipts
(FDRs) prematurely during financial year 2012-13 to meet various pressing fund
requirements. It encashed 17 FDRs, ranging between periods of 181 days to one
year, which were worth Rs. 130 crore.
More
recently, the standing committee of finance (2014-15) of the 16th Lok Sabha, in
its 31-page report, which mostly deals with the BCCI/IPL’s commercial aspect,
came down heavily on tax authorities for being “very lenient” on the Board.
In some
cases, the probe by the tax authorities, including the Enforcement Directorate,
continues. “The committee are, however, not satisfied with the progress of
investigations in the matter, as already much time has passed without any
outcome by way of penal action in these cases. The committee, therefore, would
like the government to conclude the investigations in the matter expeditiously
and apprise the committee of the outcome thereof,” wrote M. Veerappa Moily,
chairperson of the committee on finance.
(This story was first published in Mail Today newspaper on December 23, 2014)
