BCCI's COA freeze payment worth 76 lakhs to Bookmyshow

The Supreme Court of India had appointed the Committee of Administrators (COA) to take care of the administration of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). There were constant acquisitions of financial irregularities within the board but there existed no body to audit and clear payments. Now, the COA is investigating all such matters and has recently decided to freeze a payment worth 76 lakhs issued to bookmyshow.com.

It was earlier cleared by the COA but when former BCCI president Anurag Thakur’s executive assistant Krishna Pophale was asked to give out details of the tickets issued against the cost there was no explanation produced for it and thus they have decided to pull back from their original stance. As per the provisions the BCCI president as well as the secretary is allotted 100 tickets each for ICC matches but the actual figures are way over that.

COA has thus asked BCCI’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Santosh Rangnekar to stop the payment. Indian Express quoted an email from Rangnekar to Pophale and it read, “It has been informed to us by WC Management / Operations that you have not submitted account of the Option to Buy ( OTB ) tickets drawn by you from book My show for the world cup matches and the amount as you know is staggering ( Approx. Rs. 76 lacs ).”

In his reply the secretary stated, “The tickets drawn for WT20 and the figure of Rs 76 lakh, which you have quoted was cumulative and other staff of BCCI were also actively involved in ticket distribution process across venues, apart from me. Since Delhi Semifinal was exclusively handled by me, only reconciliation of that match remained pending which was cleared by me in the month of October/November. You can confirm from your colleagues Mr RP Shah and Mr VL Sahasrabuddhe about the same.”

The COA isn’t satisfied with the reply that doesn’t include name of people who were the beneficiaries of the tickets and the reason they were given those.