Special panel to investigate CAB’s IPL fiasco
BY: Nadim Siraj
With no end in sight to the CAB’s ongoing controversy over the IPL accounts, the entire case has now been handed over to a special panel of legal eagles that is expected to sort things out and close the chapter once and for all.
The Eden Gardens, home of the Shah Rukh Khan-owned Kolkata Knight Riders, hosted seven matches of the IPL Twenty20 Championship during the April 20-May 25 carnival.
It’s been seven long months since the T20 event’s inaugural edition, and the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) is still struggling to come out with a straight and clear version of who is actually responsible for the whopping expenses incurred.
In a heartening development aimed at ending the blame-game that’s been dragging on for months now, Jagmohan Dalmiya & Co have handed over the IPL expenses controversy to a three-member high-profile panel, called the Special Committee. The team comprises legal experts — former Chief Justice Umesh Banerjee, Retd Justice Dilip Kumar Basu and seasoned chartered accountant Prasanta Kumar Mullick.
The decision to hand the sensitive matter over to the Special Committee was taken at today’s IPL committee meeting at the BC Roy Club House office at Eden Gardens. The CAB’s own IPL committee comprises panel chairman Srinjoy Bose, Chinmoy Dey and NR Dutta. Today’s meeting — at which the decision was taken to hand over the IPL issue to the Special Committee — was also attended by the CAB’s finance committee chairman Chitrak Mitra, CAB joint-secretaries Arun Mitra and Biswarup Dey, and treasurer Subir Ganguly.
With the next edition of the IPL extravaganza coming up in April 2009, it’s understandable that the CAB administration is growing impatient over the IPL expenses issue. However, the CAB officials say the special panel hasn’t been given any specific deadline for the ‘job’.
CAB joint-secretary Biswarup Dey told The Indian Express: “Well, all the papers and every scrap of document necessary is being handed over now to the special committee. It’s up to them to solve the problem. They have been given total freedom to investigate into what happened during the IPL last summer and we are all looking forward to what they have to say, although we are not burdening them with any specific time-frame to wind up things.”
Much water has passed under the bridge ever since the then Prasun Mukherjee-led CAB administration hosted the IPL matches at the Eden Gardens, and the problems started with the state body going into an over-spending drive in hosting the seven matches, five of which were floodlit encounters.
Each of the eight hosting state associations of the IPL carnival was instructed to limit their IPL-related expenditure to Rs 3.5 crore, with the spent amount of money recoverable from the respective franchisees.
However, the CAB spent a whopping Rs 7.26 crore in bills for the IPL matches played in Kolkata. The Mukherjee-led administration had argued then that Eden Gardens being a large stadium, the excessive expenditure was inevitable.
However, Shah Rukh’s company Red Chillies Entertainment, which owns the Kolkata Knight Riders through Knight Riders Sports Pvt Ltd, is learnt to have refused to reimburse the entire sum of Rs 7.26 crore, offering just the promised sum of Rs 3.5 crore.
In between, Dalmiya came to power in July-end, and despite repeated calls for help to the BCCI, the CAB is up in arms over how to recover the excess expenses to the tune of Rs 3.76 crore. Letters have been fired to former CAB chief Mukherjee, seeking explanations, but the former police commissioner has logically explained that the ball is in Shah Rukh’s court now.
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Tags :Constitutional Law
