I-T cops home in on match fixing charge during IPL-2

 
Sources from I-T department say that the investigation wing has already filed a confidential report to the  Finance Ministry.

Unconfirmed reports said  that “outcome-fixing” has been manoeuvred by senior and junior cricketers playing in rival teams. 

A clear pattern has been supposedly worked out where a particular bowler has bowled easy deliveries and dropped catches, while his ‘partner in crime’ in the opposite team merrily went on a scoring spree.

Upset by these allegations,  most of the team owners have sought clarification from IPL over allegations of match fixing in IPL Season 2.

Some of the franchisees reacted furiously to the allegations of match fixing in IPL.
Joy Bhattacharya, CEO of Kolkata Knight Riders, called the report “ridiculous” and said that all the players in his team had been working hard to win every match.

Echoing on similar lines, Raghu Iyer, Chief Marketing officer of Rajasthan Royals, called the allegations “absolutely baseless.”

 IPL CEO Sundar Raman on Friday appeared before I-T authorities here in response to the summons issued by the latter on April 16. It is not clear whether Raman has provided the information on eight teams to the I- T authorities.

Bid documents

The I-T department, reportedly, had asked the BCCI to submit the bid documents of all the eight franchises, ownership and shareholding details, their addresses, entities owning the franchise and their contract with the IPL, payments made by the franchises to the BCCI or the IPL, and payments made by the BCCI or the IPL to the franchises.

Punjab office raided

Meanwhile, Income Tax officials also reportedly raided the offices of the IPL franchise,  Kings XI Punjab.

A team of I-T authorities visited the offices of the Mohali-based team in Bombay Dyeing premises at Worli and scoured documents relating to monetary transactions with IPL.
Kings XI Punjab has been in the thick of controversy with the Central Excise Department in Chandigarh slapping a notice on it, seeking the payment of service tax totalling to Rs 5.38 crore.

The Income Tax sleuths also visited the Mohali office of the team but said that it did not find anything incriminating there.