DD lost Rs 210 million on Dhaka ICC knock-out tournament: CBI
The Central Bureau of Investigation has alleged that three senior
officials of Doordarshan cheated the government of about Rs 210 million and showed undue favour to two private television
networks and certain officials of the International
Cricket Council and its subsidiary ICC Development
International while granting telecast rights for the ICC
knock-out tournament in Dhaka in 1998.
In an FIR filed in a city court, the CBI alleged that
Rakesh Bahadur, deputy director general (Commercial and
Sales), K Kunhikrishnan, deputy director general (Sports) and P K
Seth, deputy director general (Finance), had entered into a
criminal conspiracy with Bangalore-based Worldtel and Delhi-based Stracon India and dishonestly enhanced the bid
for the telecast of the tournament.
The CBI alleged that against global tenders invited for
the telecast rights, Doordarshan submitted its bid of
8.5 million US dollars including 0.5 million dollars as
production charges, but in conspiracy with some ICC and IDI
officials, "dishonestly" enhanced the bid to Rs 10 million
dollars, excluding production charges of one million US
dollars.
The initial bid of 8.5 million dollars submitted by the
Doordarshan officials was itself the highest, the FIR alleged.
The officials of the ICC and the IDI in conspiracy with the
Doordarshan officials introduced a condition of bid guarantee
of ten per cent to be submitted alongwith the bid document
just a week before the opening of the bids, the CBI alleged.
The three Doordarshan officials, in conspiracy with
Stracon and Worldtel and certain officials of
the ICC and the IDI, asked Stracon to give such a guarantee and in
process dishonestly passed on the charge of overseas rights to
Stracon.
The Delhi-based television company, in turn, passed the
same rights to Worldtel, who submitted the bank
guarantee and fraudulently obtained the overseas rights of the
ICC knock-out tournament by putting Doordarshan to a substantial
pecuniary loss of about Rs 21 crore.
On November 13, sleuths of the anti-corruption branch
carried out searches at the residential and official premises
of six Doordarshan officials, including the three mentioned
in this FIR, the premises of three private television
companies and former chief of ICC Jagmohan Dalmiya, in five
cities.
Mail Cricket Editor
