Gavaskar’s locker — Dirt hits ceiling at Bombay Gym

Responding to notices from I-T, the gym management had said that only Rs 1.25 lakh in Indian currency and a few hundred Bangladeshi Takas and Sri Lankan Rupees were found in the locker. The taxman was told that there was only a neglible amount of US dollars. The gym had submitted a copy of the two-page panchnama to I-T to support its case.

But even as the I-T remains unimpressed by the gym’s explanation due to some discrepancy in signatures on the panchnama and has been making persistent enquiries leading to consternation among the club’s high-profile members, an envelope retrieved from the cupboard of an ex-deputy secretary of the gym (some say it was found among the files in the sports section pertaining to year 1995) has caused the monsoon temperatures to soar at the gym.

It is learnt that according to this new evidence, there is reason to believe that much more than Rs 1.25 lakh was found in Gavaskar’s locker. Though the exact sum is still unknown, apparently the locker contained huge amounts of foreign currency in pound sterling, euro dollars and traveller’s cheques apart from a very important contract of Gavaskar’s with a sports TV channel.

It is this new discovery that has rattled the managing committee of the gym because if this is true it would have serious implications for the gym with the Income Tax department. Some committee members, led by a very senior office-bearer, launched a scathing attack on Thakkar for landing the gym in the mess and, for the first time in its long history, putting the gym perhaps on the wrong side of the law. The managing committee members also raised hell that though the incident occurred way back in September of 1999, they were brought into the picture only in the middle of May 2000 only when an anonymous letter started doing the rounds that a major operation was on to cover-up the incident. Even today, in spite of all the muck-raking at the meetings, there is, of course, a complete clampdown on information and no official was willing to talk to this reporter.

The members demanded that Thakkar, who had only a few months to go as president, own up the responsibility for the mismanagement of the whole incident and put in his papers by Wednesday when the committee is slated to meet again. The committee also sacked the chief executive officer of the gym, Col (retd) Negi, who had signed the communication to I-T claiming that only Rs 1.25 lakh was found in the locker. Thakker has reportedly refused to step down, claiming that the managing committee was as much in all this as he was. The vocal group in the committee has threatened to quit en masse if Thakkar does not put in his papers by Wednesday.

But what is of much greater significance than the boardroom battles of the Bombay Gymkhana is how the Income Tax will look at the new developments.