KOLKATA/LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI: Tax officials who conducted search operations at the offices of the Bengal Cricket Association and Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders till the early hours of Thursday here claimed to have found “incriminating evidence” of irregularities.

“We have found incriminating evidence. We will investigate further. We needed to have a look at certain transactions and we’ve found whatever we were looking for,” said Indian Revenue Service Deputy Director, Mr Akhilendu Jadhav.
The main angle that the sleuths of the Directorate of Income Tax Investigation were looking for on the probe into the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises was the legality of money transfers from tax havens abroad, primarily Mauritius, officials explained. This apart, officials of the Directorate of Enforcement were probing the legitimacy of transactions between the franchise and the state’s cricket board, the officials added.
Searches at both the board’s office at the Eden Gardens stadium and the premises of Kolkata Knight Riders and its parent Red Chillies Entertainment of actor Shah Rukh Khan at ITC Sonar Bangla and Shakespeare Sarani began at 3 p.m. on Wednesday. The federal revenue department had on Wednesday broadened the probe into the financial deals of IPL, even conducting search operations on three of its event management and broadcast firms in Mumbai, apart from the franchises.
Income Tax sleuths on Thursday also conducted a raid at the head office of the Sahara Group, owner of IPL Pune team, at Aliganj here and scoured through documents related to the Indian Premier League. A 12-member team came to the office at about 2 p.m. and examined documents related to IPL, company sources said. However, company officials maintained that it was “not a raid but a routine survey” by the department. “They had sought time to examine the IPL papers,” they said.
A raid by the I-T officials was also carried out in New Delhi at the Delhi Daredevil office owned by conglomerate GMR in connection with the IPL probe. The I-T sleuths reached the Barakhamba Road office in the afternoon to conduct the survey operation after receiving inputs from Mumbai investigation wing of the department, sources said. However, when contacted, company officials denied that any such operation was carried out on their premises. GMR sports is the owner of IPL team Delhi Daredevils.
Meanwhile, top brass of the Finance ministry, Income Tax department and financial intelligence sleuths on Thursday held a closed-door meet in New Delhi. I-T officials including the Director-General of Investigations in Mumbai flew to the national capital and briefed top CBDT and Finance Ministry officials about the probe that is now being carried out across the country on various IPL franchises and others.
The Mumbai I-T officials were also handed over a report on the ‘source probe’ that the department had generated on the IPL and its associates along with the Annual Information Return (AIR) of ‘high value transactions’ that the department possessed. Sources said tax officials also briefed the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) about the details of the probe and a detailed plan of action was drawn as the investigation is now being carried out in various parts of the country. The meeting involved officials of income tax intelligence, investigation sleuths from Delhi and officials of agencies like Central Economic Intelligence
Bureau (CEIB). Sources said the Mumbai investigation wing also brought a few documents that the department had taken from the office of IPL commissioner Mr Lalit Modi.