I-T dept issues notices to bookies; some cricketers submit returns

Income Tax authorities have almost completed issuing notices to all bookies involved in the match-fixing scandal, including that of South Delhi based jeweller Mukesh Gupta.

Highly-placed I-T sources in New Delhi said that notices to majority of bookies had been sent and some of them had submitted their block returns in the wake of appraisals made of seizures during country-wide searches on July 20 last year.

The sources said that necessary action would be taken after the Assessing Officer would compare their returns to that of the assessment made by the I-T department.

The sources said taxmen had completed the assessment of some bookies including that of Gupta on a priority basis. However, they said some bookies still remained to be served with the notice and the process would be completed within the next fortnight.

Meanwhile, several cricketers, who had been served notices after the nation-wide raids last year, had submitted their returns to the I-T authorities.

The assessing officer concerned had issued notices to Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Sharma, Ajay Jadeja, Nikhil Chopra, Mohammed Azharuddin, Navjot Sidhu and Kapil Dev.

Barring Kapil Dev who had sought some more time, the other players had submitted their returns to the I-T authorities. The players had filed in their block returns for the period of 1990-2000, the sources said.

I-T sources have estimated a whopping "undisclosed income", assets and investments by seven cricketers including Kapil Dev and Azharuddin.

The appraisal reports of the players, whose premises were searched as part of 'Operation Gentleman' in July last year, estimated the undisclosed income of Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar at around Rs 2.5 crore and of Ajay Jadeja at around Rs 2.2 crore, the sources said.

The undisclosed income of Sharma and Chopra was estimated at around Rs 70 and Rs 50 lakhs respectively, they said adding the appraisal reports had been prepared after confronting the players with evidence gathered during the searches and documents relating to their advertisement and endorsement revenue, match fees and gifts.

In a nation-wide swoop, taxmen had last year raided premises of cricketers including Kapil Dev, Jadeja, Sharma, Chopra and Prabhakar (all in Delhi), Azharuddin (Hyderabad and Mumbai) and Navjot Sidhu (Patiala), former ICC chief Jagmohan Dalmiya (Calcutta), Worldtel Chairman Mark Mascarenhas (Bangalore) and BCCI treasurer Kishore Rungta (Jaipur), besides some bookies.