Mystery woman saved Modi from I-T officials: Report

In a startling revelation, the CCTV footage showed a mystery woman leaving the IPL commissioner Lalit K Modi’s office with papers and briefcases, minutes before the I-T team reached.

Zeenews Bureau

New Delhi: In a startling revelation, the CCTV footage showed a mystery woman leaving the IPL commissioner Lalit K Modi’s office at 4 Seasons Hotel in Parel with papers and briefcases, minutes before the I-T team reached the target destination.

Reportedly, I-T officials have said that the woman was seen leaving Modi`s office with laptop and files.

The officials added that since the IPL bosses were forewarned, they successfully ‘sprinted away’ papers before the I-T team reached Parel.

One senior officer had earlier said, “The CCTV footage retrieved by us clearly shows IPL officials leaving the hotel with papers and briefcases, minutes before the I-T team reached the target destination. We are now trying to identify officials and make a damage-control assessment.” Meanwhile, after a visit to the Mumbai office of Indian Premier League (IPL), the Income Tax administration has proposed similar investigation into other cities` teams as well to ascertain the source of funds of various franchises, officials here said on Friday. "This will be an ongoing process. We may be conducting investigations in other cities as well. But let me also add: these are not raids, but document-based investigation," a top official in the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said. Investigating officers of the I-T department also probed IPL Kochi headquarters and Kings XI Punjab offices in Mohali. The teams have reportedly seized three hard disks which would provide complete details of conversation between the IPL management and bidders, Zee News has learned. Since Thursday evening, officials of the Income Tax department not only examined various documents and records at the office of IPL, but also questioned Modi. The operation, described as a routine inquiry, went on till the early hours of Friday. According to top officials here, the operation in Mumbai was primarily to establish that the source of money involved in the cricketing extravaganza was "clean" with no loss to the exchequer on account of evasion.

Modi may further be questioned in the matter, they added. The tax administration had already started a specific probe into the Kochi franchise of IPL, embroiled in a major controversy over the ownership issue, to ascertain if its money had been channeled illegally from tax havens abroad. The tax probe followed a political row in since last week after allegations that Sunanda Pushkar, a shareholder in the Kochi IPL franchise and a friend of Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, received free equity in it. Officials said their main concern was, however, black money abroad and tax evasion. They added that just as they try to prevent such ill-gotten funds from going out the country, they also try to probe if it is channeled back into the country illegally. The franchise for the Kochi team, which will play from the fourth edition of the IPL Twenty-20 cricket extravaganza, was won in an auction last month by a firm called Rendezvous Sports for over USD 330 million. Along with Subroto Roy`s Sahara group, which bagged the franchise for the Pune team, the second of the two new teams, the Kochi team is scheduled to join eight other teams from the next edition of the cricket tournament. These are: Mumbai Indians, Delhi Daredevils, Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Deccan Chargers, Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab. Modi has so far maintained that there was a question mark over the ownership of the Kochi IPL franchise since the owners themselves did not know some of the people involved with it.

"With regards to the eight franchisees, we know about all the stakeholders. But there are still some doubts over the ownership of the Kochi franchise. Even the people who signed the tender documents don’t know who they are," Modi had said.