Taxmen find 33 foreign players paid illegally

With this, it is needless to say that contract fee of almost all the foreign players—going by the IPL norm that only four foreign players were allowed to play in a match—of eight IPL teams were paid illegally in violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) norms.

A sum amounting to $1,720,250 (roughly Rs 7.63 crore) by the BCCI-promoted Indian Premier League was paid to the 33 foreign players without the requisite clearance from the Reserve Bank of India, says a new interim report of the special investigation team of the Income-Tax department probing corruption in the IPL. 

That apart, the BCCI also paid dollars equivalent to Rs 1.2 crore in violation of the FEMA norms, it added.

In the case of the Rajasthan Royals team that money was sent from two companies in the United Kingdom and Mauritius to the team holding company in India, overlooking the RBI.

Crores lost

In effect, this implied that India has lost crores worth of foreign exchange and tax because of the violations and also the black component routed from abroad had gone towards paying the foreign players. 

Initial probe by the I-T eepartment and the Enforcement Directorate are specially critical of Jaipur IPL Pvt Ld, which owns the Rajasthan Royals team, and squarely blame it of violating FEMA regulations. 

During questioning by the I-T officials, neither the BCCI nor the IPL officials could give any satisfactory explanation over how the franchise agreement had been signed by Jaipur IPL Pvt Ltd when the franchise per se was won by Emerging Media Cricket Ltd, UK, in the auction.

Even though the franchise money was paid to the BCCI by EM Sporting Holding, Mauritius, it was Jaipur IPL that had claimed the deposit amount, according to the documents. It is interesting to note that the I-T zonal office in Hyderabad appears to have stumbled upon these financial irregularities.