The notices came after the IT Department’s investigation wing finalized appraisal reports of five cricketers whose residences and business establishments were searched as part of Operation Gentleman on July 20 in connection with the match-fixing allegations.
After a five-month-long probe, the IT Department has now estimated the undisclosed income of Kapil Dev at above Rs 2.5 crore; that of Manoj Prabhakar at around Rs 2.5 crore; of Ajay Jadeja at Rs 2.2 crore; Ajay Sharma at around Rs 70 lakh and Nikhil Copra at around Rs 50 lakh.
These figures have been kept under wraps by the IT Department. Some details were to be submitted to Parliament but since it didn’t come up during question hour, they were quickly sealed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
The cricketers have been given a month to submit details of their undeclared income and will be liable to pay 60 per cent of the amount in taxes. However, should they fail to admit to the concealment at this late stage, they will have to cough up penalties up to 300 per cent and face prosecution under Section 276 (C), even the spectre of imprisonment for a period between six months to seven years.
IT sleuths found an expected pattern of evasion: suppression of income, inflation of expenses and unexplained investments. Each of the players was found to have under-valued properties he purchased.
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Perhaps the most significant aspect of the investigations was the discovery that these players had been falsely claiming 75 per cent tax exemption on their cricketing income by describing themselves as amateurs. (The exemption for amateur players had been introduced by the Government in 1981 but had been withdrawn in the year 1997). In fact, all five sought exemptions on all their cricketing incomematch fees, income from advertisements, endorsements or gifts.
The exhaustive appraisal report prepared in Kapil Dev’s case, for instance, gives an idea of the nature of investigations. Besides dealing with the concealed income from the seven companies run by him, the appraisal report has separate notes and chapters on the undeclared cricket income (around Rs 30 lakh for the block period); for gifts like a BMW car and a Tata Sumo jeep he received; for the Hussain paintings he owns; for rentals he earns from companies like Bata; for the consultancy he has done for Doordarshan and even the grant of free membership to him from a Golf course.
During the course of the investigations, the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) was asked to furnish details of the fees the five cricketers had earned and a host of private companies were questioned about endorsements and sponsorships they gave.
In all, around 500 persons had been questioned in connection with the five assessments.
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Another revelation was the fact that the cricketers had, year after year, been declaring that they were paying hefty commissions to persons for procurement of advertising and endorsement contracts. When contacted, almost all of them denied they had rendered any service to the cricketers and were therefore declared ‘‘bogus.’’
The players had been confronted with all this evidence several times and officials say more than one of them had broken down while being shown copies of their bank and credit card card statements, travel vouchers and other documentary evidence.
In the case of Kapil Dev, Manoj Prabhakar and Ajay Jadeja, who were all running flourishing businesses as well, the taxmen found their account books in shambles. It is understood that in view of the incomplete and incorrect accounts maintained by the players as proprietors, the proviso under section 145 of the IT act might be invoked by the assessing officer and an ‘‘estimated’’ income arrived at by the assessing officer.
The appraisal reports of the five players have now been centralized and the final assessments will be prepared by officials in the CIT Central(II) wing of the IT department.
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In the meantime, officials in the Investigation Wing are putting the final touches on the appraisal reports of around a dozen bookies and their associates whose houses were also searched. A majority of these reports will be completed by month-end and, sources say, the concealment of bookies also run into crores of rupees. The prominent bookies who had come under the IT scanner after the July 20 raids were Mukesh Gupta, Hans Kumar Jain, Anand Saxena, Rattan Mehta and Manmohan Khattar.
