IT to issue notices to cricketers this week

The Income Tax authorities will be issuing notices this week to five cricketers including Kapil Dev and Ajay Jadeja for filing of block returns in the wake of appraisals made of seizures during recent country-wide searches.

Highly-placed sources in the IT department told PTI that the assessing officer of Income Tax would be issuing notices to Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Sharma, Ajay Jadeja and Nikhil Chopra whose appraisal reports had already been sent to him. The appraisal report of Kapil Dev would also be completed this week and sent to him.

The players would have to file in their block returns for the period 1990-2000 within 30 days, the sources said.

The appraisal report of Navjot Singh Sidhu has also been completed and sent to Ludhiana Directorate from where he would be issued notice for submission of the block returns this week, the sources said.

In a nation-wide swoop on July 20, IT officials raided the premises of cricketers including Kapil Dev, Jadeja, Ajay Sharma, Nikhil Chopra and Manoj Prabhakar (all in Delhi), Md 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.

The IT sources said the appraisal report of Azharuddin had been also completed by the Hyderabad directorate and notice was likely to be issued to him soon.

The sources said this was the last opportunity for the players to clear themselves and defaulters would attract a fine of 100 to 300 per cent of the income involved.

About the bookies, the sources said their appraisal reports would be completed in another 10 days and sent to the assessing officers for issuance of notices.

The IT authorities had centralised the cases for players in Delhi and one IT Commissioner would be assisted by two assessing officers for speedy disposal of the cases, IT sources said.

Meanwhile, the CBI sources said it "would not act in haste" in prosecuting the two cricketers - Azharuddin and Ajay Sharma - under the prevention of Corruption Act. CBI sources said they would wait for the final report of the IT authorities before initiating any action on the two cricketers, who are public servants.