MUMBAI, JUNE 14: An Income-Tax raid on Ramnik Chavda, a little-known Mumbai builder, about three years ago is threatening to drag cricket icon Kapil Dev into further controversy. For not only does the income-tax department believe that Kapil gave Chavda Rs 83 lakh - which he did not disclose - but it also discovered that Chavda is a bookie in the game of cricket betting.In 1997, when the investigation wing of the Income-Tax, Mumbai, searched a family of landowners in Khar, their trail led to Chavda. The I-T sleuths recovered a diary from Chavda which contained details of the money received by Chavda from various persons. One name among those was Kapil Dev's.Kapil, it turned out, had a joint venture with Chavda by the name of Devyogi Enterprises. According to entries in Chavda's diary, two cheques of Rs 25 lakh were paid out of the account of Devyogi Enterprises to Chavda's company, Shastriji Constructions, in 1996. Another amount of Rs 83 lakh, I-T claims, was paid to Chavda by Kapil in cash. It is this cash transaction that has caught the I-T eye.Despite attempts to reach him, Kapil remained incommunicado for the last three days. A faxed questionnaire did not elicit any response just as all the e-mails went unattended.From the documents seized at Chavda's premises, the taxman found that Kapil seemed to have had an investment arrangement with Chavda. Normally, builders use investors' money for their projects and return the money after the completion of the same. As guarantee, they commit one flat (or more depending on the size of the investment). But once the project is done, the builder returns the money to the investor and the flat agreement is torn.In the case of Kapil, too, it seems while the amounts invested by way of cheques were on record, the cash amount was secured by way of such a flat-ownership agreement. The amount invested by cheques was returned to Kapil by a cheque for Rs 53 lakh - Rs 50 lakh plus Rs 3 lakh as interest. There was no such record of the cash amount of Rs 83 lakh having been returned which was lying with Chavda when he was raided.What happened to that investigation and whether a tax demand was raised on Kapil for the Rs 83 lakh is not known but it is learnt that I-T might look into this transaction with renewed interest in the light of Cricketgate. Chief Commissioner of I-T in Delhi, Raj Narain, when contacted, refused to talk to this reporter.It is also not known if Kapil has filed a VDIS declaration. If this amount had been covered by a VDIS declaration, several questions would arise since VDIS does not cover concealed income after it has been discovered by any action of the I-T. That would depend on the date of the VDIS declaration. Any discovery of concealed income is liable to tax at 60 per cent. It is not known also if the amount (Rs 83 lakh) figures in any of Kapil's returns for the relevant years.Thus spake the ministers* Union Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs Syed Shahnwaz Hussain has said the CBI has ample proof of match-fixing against a cricket icon, whose name would be disclosed soon. Hussain on Wednesday said the investigating agency, now probing match-fixing, was moving in the right direction.* Sports Minister Sukhdev Dhindsa said on Thursday that Azhar should stay out of the Indian cricket team on his own till he is cleared of the ‘‘serious allegations’’ levelled against him by Cronje.* The CBI said no bookie by the name of Mukesh Gupta had so far figured in the course of its probe.
