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DDCA accounts on ministry website, administrators clueless

Cricket body's disputed accounts have surfaced in the Registrar of Companies list without the knowledge of the court-appointed administrator

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In an indication that its affairs continue to be clouded by controversy, the Delhi and District Cricket Association's (DDCA) disputed accounts for 2014 and 2105 have been uploaded on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website with both the present court-appointed administrator and his predecessor in the dark about the development.

The balance sheets appeared on the MCA21 portal even while Justice (retd) Vikramajit Sen -- appointed by the Delhi High Court to regulate affairs in the cricket body -- was yet to complete his mandate to have accounts for financial years 2013, 2014 and 2015 audited by an external auditor.

The accounts for 2014 and 2015 have been signed off by former DDCA president SP Bansal, former general secretary Anil Khanna and former treasurer Ravinder Manchanda.

Officials working under Sen and Justice Mukul Mudgal, who was tasked with supervising and setting the internal management of DDCA in order before him, told DNA that they had no knowledge of this.

Mudgal, too, distanced himself from the controversy. "I was not informed about this and I don't know about this. I was only conducting matches, so, strictly speaking, I am not conversant...it was not my business to see what the accounts were and I was there to see that the matches conducted under me were held properly and their accounts had been maintained, which has been done," the former chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court told DNA.

The uploaded accounts generate greater interest as previous versions of financial statements released by DDCA to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in November 2015 have been attacked by a number of officials, both within and outside DDCA, on grounds that they were not examined by them or they were based on fake bills running into several crores of rupees.

Murky financial transactions

That the accounts surfaced on the ministry website is alarming, sources said. Financial transactions carried out in FY 14 have been widely and vigorously disputed by a number of authorities within the DDCA, they explained.

Reports released by an internal fact-finding committee and internal audit report in late 2014 found that Rs1.55 crore were paid to three companies without any approval of the executive committee. This deviation acquired all the more attention as it was carried out with the express knowledge of then DDCA president Bansal, who later claimed it to be an investment.

Other allegations concerning large-scale misappropriation of funds and unauthorised payments to professionals were also levelled against the executive committee and other DDCA members in FY14.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The state of corporate misgovernance and widespread fiscal corruption is such that DDA has, even in the past, been probed by a number of authorities, including the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, the Delhi government, the CBI and the RoC.

Naturally, this has led to a situation where there is no clarity on a true and accurate financial statements for FY 14 and FY 15. "It is obvious that someone who has a lot to lose by an independent audit has posted the balance sheet on RoC's website without the knowledge and approval of Justice Sen," a spokesperson for the NCT (National Capital Territory) Cricket Association told DNA.

What's more damning is that DDCA is one of the few state cricket associations that failed to submit its books to Deloitte for an audit when then BCCI chief Shashank Manohar in October 2015 called upon them to do so.

The dates

The dates, as per records, on which the balance sheets of FY 2104 and 2015 were approved by the board of directors are November 9, 2015, and May 5, 2016. However, they were uploaded on the ministry website much later -- on December 26, 2016, and January 12 this year.

The Delhi High Court had appointed Mudgal in December 2015 to oversee the conduct of a Test match at Ferozeshah Kotla. In time, the court gave him the additional responsibility of supervising the functioning of DDCA.

Last year, however, Mudgal "expressed his inability to continue as Administrator" and was replaced by Sen on February 15 this year, with the direction that he shall appoint an external auditor to put the accounts for FY 13,14 and 15 under the scanner.

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