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BCCI partly shows financial details to SC
Friday 18 March 2016

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has proved Supreme Court's special bench right by declaring in its affidavit that as much as Rs 557.08 crore was being paid to 'voting members' for the financial year 2014-15.

The affidavit pertaining to payments of funds to its members for the period 2010-11 to 2014-15 was asked by the special bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice FMI Kalifulla during the last hearing.

The BCCI, however, has played it smart by showing only money being paid out of telecast rights and not mentioning the over and above amount that each state association gets for hosting domestic and international matches.

In other words, any state association that is hosting the ongoing ICC World T20 matches will get an amount of Rs 1.5 crore for a men's match while Rs 28 lakh for a women's game. For instance, Nagpur will be richer by about Rs 10 crore at the end of this World T20.

Similarly, every state association gets a huge amount for hosting junior, senior, zonal and international matches apart from what BCCI has actually filed in its reply.

In the last hearing, the special bench made a scathing observation by saying that "it's a vicious circle that you (BCCI) don't pay money to other states (non-voting members) and then you expect them to develop cricket in those areas".

How BCCI has smartly redone its mathematics is interesting. Instead of showing the entire amount that it pays to the associations every year, the board affidavit has only mentioned part money, thus trying to avoid another big chunk being given to voters. Every state association gets about Rs 30 to 35 crore a year from the BCCI.

"Basically, this money which you pay to your members is to get their votes," Justice Thakur had observed in the last hearing, pointing towards how for this big amount, most associations keep endorsing the wrongdoings in the BCCI.

Another thing that has been noticeable in the BCCI affidavit is that all member bodies spend "very less amount on the cricketing activities".

For example, according to the table, the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association has got Rs 20.79 crore for 2014-15 and spent only Rs 4.97 crore towards cricket and no detail has been given about the remaining amount.

As per BCCI guidelines, 70 per cent of the money received from it has to be used for cricketing activities or development of cricket. And only remaining 30 per cent should be diverted to non-cricketing activities.

Take the cases of Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association or the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA), where huge corruption scandals were being unearthed recently. If JKCA president Farooq Abdulla is facing corruption allegations to the tune of approximately Rs1.25 crore corruption, then DDCA president Sneh Bansal was caught by internal inquiry committee for round-tripping Rs 1.55 crore into his own three companies.

And, who can actually question these states, knowing well how former BCCI president N Srinivasan had forced board to keep Rs 326 crore aside only to fight legal cases arising out of spot-fixing and saving his own seat?

The BCCI also agreed in affidavit that "no money has been paid to non members", which would actually go against it in the Supreme Court hearing scheduled for Friday.

Gujarat and Maharashtra, with three active bodies each, were paid close to Rs 100 crore each.

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