Taxmen widen IPL probe; visit Mohali, Jaipur offices
17 Apr 2010
A team of income tax officials visited the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium at Mohali near Chandigarh to collect documents and records pertaining to the Indian Premier League.
An 11-member team including two deputy directors visited the stadium at 7:00 pm and scrutinised the documents at the Kings XI Punjab headquarters.
''It is not a raid, but just like a normal search operation. A team from our investigation wing has gone to the PCA to see if there is any IPL related document. If they find anything, they can seize it for further scrutiny,'' Panchkula Pawan Parmar, director (survey), Income Tax, said. ''It is not a big deal and is a regular exercise.''
However, it is widely believed to be part of a wider crackdown to seek the sourcing of funds for all 10 Indian Premier League teams after the controversy over the funding of the new Kochi team.
Similar exercises were undertaken at Rajasthan Royals office in Jaipur and in the office of one of the owners of Kochi franchise in Bangalore. The fresh search operations came a day after conducting a search operation at the IPL headquarters in Mumbai.
Officials also conducted searches at the office of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in Chandigarh.