The Corporate Affairs Ministry on Monday said it is collecting information on all franchisees of IPL teams and doing their due diligence.
“My ministry is merely collecting information that we should have in the normal course of those companies that are franchisee companies,” Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters here.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), he added, was not conducting any probe but was only doing the due diligence as lot of questions have been raised publically about the ownership pattern of the franchisee companies.
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“My ministry is not conducting a probe.... Because a lot of questions are raised publicly...we should do our due diligence,” Mr. Khurshid said.
The MCA, on Wednesday last, had directed the Registrar of Companies (RoC) to collect within a week all details on IPL franchises, including the bidding process, sweat equity, memorandum of association and also franchise agreements.
The Ministry would try to find out whether the “equity structure (of IPL franchises) is hazy or not...filings are available. If there is any discrepancy, we will look into it,” Mr. Khurshid had said.
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The probe follows the controversy over ownership of the Kochi IPL franchise, where Rendezvous Sports World had given 19 per cent of the 25 per cent stake held by it to Sunanda Pushkar, a close friend of Shashi Tharoor, who resigned from Union Ministry in the face of allegations that he had misused his official position.