The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked a virtually broke DDCA to pay Delhi Excise Department Rs 1 crore “within a month” as part payment of entertainment tax dues as it gave permission to the beleaguered association to host the India-South Africa Test next month.
The same double bench, comprising judges Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva, had on Wednesday told the South Delhi Municipal Corporation to give the DDCA a provisional occupancy certificate to the DDCA so that it could host the five-day match at the Ferozeshah Kotla from 3 December.
On Wednesday, the court had asked the DDCA to deposit Rs 50 lakh with the South Delhi Municipal Corporation and secure the provisional occupancy certificate.
The Excise Department of Delhi had imposed Rs 24.46 crore tax, including old dues.
“The court today told the DDCA to deposit Rs 50 lakh within the next two weeks and the other Rs 50 lakh in the two weeks after that,” DDCA counsel Sunil Kumar Mittal told www.jantakareporter.com
The DDCA is contesting the tax amount determined by the Excise Department, saying that it was wrongly calculated. The next date of hearing in the case is 27 November.
The court has also requested Mukul Mudgal, a former chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court who probed the 2013 IPL betting-fixing case, to oversee the conduct of the match. Mudgal later told www.jantakareporter.com that he had accepted the court order.
