BCCI unearths new financial scandal in IPL 3

Mumbai:

Two days before its AGM, the Cricket Board's bigwigs have allegedly unearthed new financial irregularities in IPL 3 accounts through an internal audit on Monday.

The alleged irregularities came to the fore when the IPL's Governing Council met here on Monday to go through the accounts of the third edition of the T20 league held in March-April with now suspended Lalit Modi as chairman.

"An amount of Rs 76 crore and 22 lakh through sale of hospitality tickets for the final (on April 25), the third place tie (held on April 24) and the two semifinals (all held in Mumbai) is unaccounted for," BCCI sources, who did not want to be named, said here.

"Hospitality ticket for the final cost Rs one lakh, it was priced at Rs 80,000 for the third place tie and cost Rs 50,000 for the two semifinals. There is no account for these and there is no signed contract," the sources said.

"Also only 30,000 tickets for the final have been accounted for while the stadium (D Y Patil Stadium) was packed to capacity as everyone had seen and it can hold 52,000 people. Over 20,000 tickets are unaccounted for," they said.

The final was held between eventual champions Chennai Super Kings, led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and Sachin Tendulkar-captained Mumbai Indians.

The sources also revealed that there appeared to be irregularities in another deal wrapped up by Modi.

The Delhi-based company which got the deal (for supply of machines to screen spectators' bags at the match venues) existed only on paper and the invoice for a much lesser amount than shown in the accounts was sent to the Board by another Bangalore firm, the sources explained.

"The accounts show that the Delhi company, whose address turned out to be a guest house, had been given a contract for Rs 5.5 crore but the invoice we received from the Bangalore company for the same service was for Rs 1.5 crore out of which only Rs 70 lakh had been paid to it," the sources said.

"These things came to light when the Governing Council members sat together with the internal auditors. All these would be placed before the AGM (on September 29)," they said.

Seven members, including IPL interim chairman Chirayu Amin who is also a member of the three-man disciplinary panel set up by the Board to probe the alleged irregularities committed by Modi, did not attend Monday's meeting.

Amin and another GC member, Arun Jaitley, are conducting the probe in Delhi against Modi along with Jyotiraditya Scindia. Jaitley too could not attend the GC meeting.

Other absentees were ex-cricketers Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri, along with Farooq Abdullah and I S Bindra.