Corporate Affairs Ministry today said it is looking into all IPL franchises in the face of the controversy over team owners, a move that is in tandem with I-T probe into source of funding of the games body. Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said his ministry would find out “the rules of engagement” of all IPL franchises.
Widening the net on the controversial Kochi team ownership issue, a spokesperson later said that the ministry is studying the “arrangements” in Rendezvous Sports, a registered company with the government.
Rendezvous Sports World had given 19 per cent of the 25 per cent stake held by it in the consortium to Sunanda Pushkar, a close friend of Shashi Tharoor, who resigned as a Union minister yesterday in the face of allegations that he had misused his official position.
The spokesperson said the ministry would “study the arrangements in Rendezvous, which is registered (with Register of Companies)”, adding that all other franchises would also be looked into.
Khurshid said he had asked his ministry to prepare a status report on the IPL franchisee companies. On Kochi team, he said, “That is not for me to judge. If there are any violations, these are to be judged by the Registrar of Companies as they are the ones who monitor companies and it is their jurisdiction.”
However, cricket administrators BCCI and IPL, which has been in thick of allegations of misconduct, were not on its radar as of now as neither is an incorporated company, the minister said.
“There is nothing as of now. BCCI is not a company, IPL is not a company,” Khurshid said.
The spokesperson said sweat equity rolled out to partners in the franchisee would also be looked into.
“We will see the requirements, conditions, what are the individual companies planning to do and why are they being blamed for something,” he said.
It would look into whether the agreement, such as that of putting together a consortium that bid for Kochi franchisee, was on paper or the actual deal has been done. Pushkar had said last week that she was yet to get the sweat equity, which according to her was still on papers.
Amid the public spat with Tharoor, Modi had alleged that the partners in the consortium did not know each other even at the time of putting the USD 333 million bid.
