Mohammad Azharuddin
By Shankar Raj*
Hyderabad: An FIR has been registered against flamboyant former Indian cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin and other former office bearers of the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) for alleged misappropriation of funds totalling ₹ 3.85 crores. The money was allegedly spent to purchase cricket balls, fire safety equipment, gym equipment and bucket chairs for use at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium (RGICS) in Uppal on the outskirts of Hyderabad by inflating bills.
Others named in the FIR are former secretary R Vijay Anand and former treasurer Surender Agarwal. Companies involved in the deals. Others named in the FIR are Body Drench India Private Limited, Fire Safety Engineers Pvt Ltd, Sara Sports, and Excellent Enterprises.
According to the police here, all the accused have been charged with criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy under Sections 406, 409, 420, 465, 467, 471 and 120-b of the IPC.
The FIR was registered following four complaints filed by Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) Chief Executive Officer Suneel Kante Bose who claimed the accused resorted to misappropriation during their tenure between February 1, 2020 and February 28, 2023.
Bose said he had engaged a chartered accountancy firm on August 10, 2023, to carry out a forensic audit of HCA for a period of three years prior to March 01, 2023, keeping in view earlier reports submitted before the Telangana High Court alleging misappropriation of funds.
“Based on the interim forensic audit report, it is evident that certain transactions entered into on behalf of HCA with third-party vendors are not genuine and that the transactions have been carried out in a manner detrimental to the interest of the Association,” the complainant filed by Bose stated.
The audit found that the tendering process was allegedly monitored by Azharuddin, and some of the accused companies were brought on board through an e-notification, three days before the deadline in December 2022.
Giving one example, Bose said while procuring red and white SG test cricket balls, Azharuddin and other office bearers favoured Sara Sports “whose credentials are suspicious”. The deal led to HCA suffering a loss of Rs 57.07 lakh.
Similarly, there was misappropriation in the procurement and installation of bucket seats at the stadium from a third-party vendor, Excellent Enterprises, in collusion with the former office bearers. This caused a loss of Rs 43.1 lakh to HCA by inflating the price of each bucket chair to Rs 2,568. According to him, a purchase order raised — after this deal – fixed the price of each chair at Rs 150. A total of 700 chairs were ordered.
The police said “We have registered the case and have taken up investigation. We will be able to share more details after our initial probe.”
Azharuddhin and others were not available for comment.
*Shankar Raj is former Editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
