Income Tax dept peels away IPL's layers

The noose around the Indian Premier League has tightened as the Income Tax department has submitted its preliminary report on the investigation to Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Two days ago tax officials searched the IPL premises in Mumbai and seized documents that contained 'volatile' information. It is expected that notices would be sent to the IPL franchisees by next week. By law, I-T officials have the right to just collect information Under Section 133B of Income Tax Act. There are two parts to the report drawn by the I-T dept - the first part contains details regarding IPL's annual income while the second part shows an early investigation of the unknown owners of a few franchisees. There would be a thorough investigation into the finances of the various sides and the deals that appear to have been struck to form the teams.

The tax dept's aim is to flush out any cases of corruption or illegal money flow within the IPL chambers, that way the government can regularise IPL's finances and plug existing loopholes. IPL has faced allegations like match fixing and betting, there is a government investigation under way that looks to unearth evidence of betting on matches featuring Preity Zinta-Ness Wadia's Kings XI Punjab. It was revealed that Gaurav Burman, who happens to be the son in law of Lalit Modi, is a co-promoter of Kings' XI and has digital and mobile rights for the IPL and Champions Trophy for the next seven years. Modi himself is at the center of the investigation as his business deals and investments are being scrutinized. Modi had paid Rs 30 lakh as tax in 2008 but paid Rs 11 crore for this financial year. Tax officials suspect that his income has jumped to upwards of Rs 50 crore. Fund flows of IPL franchisees through the mysterious Mauritius route are under the radar as well.

The investigation is a result of an explosive Twitter conversation between Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor, in which the name Sunanda Pushkar came up. The woman gets a fee equity of 4.9 percent from the Kochi franchise, which is also under investigation. It has turned out that Pushkar is the fiance of Tharoor - the man has claimed that he did not form the Kochi team with a financial motive. Before the auctions as a foolproof strategy, Tharoor had planned to betray Modi by procuring some documents from his sources, the papers contained incriminating evidence against the IPL commissioner.

All is not well in IPL 3 either, as twin blasts were reported ahead of the Bangalore-Mumbai match on Saturday just outside the Chinnaswamy stadium. The blasts took place in the generator room, which is situated near Gate No. 12 of the stadium. Eleven people were injured in the blast. Explosives were in a plastic bag which was planted in the generator room.