Bombay HC upholds reduction in penalty on Rajasthan Royals IPL team owners

The Bombay High Court has upheld an order passed by a tribunal reducing the penalty imposed on the owners of the Indian Premier League IPL cricket franchise Rajasthan Royals from Rs 98 crore to Rs 15 crore for alleged financial irregularitiesA division bench of Justices K R Shriram and Neela Gokhale in its judgement on Wednesday dismissed an appeal filed by the Enforcement Directorate ED challenging the July 11 2019 order passed by the tribunalThe high court in its order noted the tribunal arrived at its conclusion based on evidence and analysis of the sameThe findings are far from being perverse Thus no question of law arises in the case We find that in fact no justification has been recorded by the special director ED to impose maximum penalty as opposed to the tribunal having considered relevant material has interfered and reduced the penalty the court said in its orderWe find that the special director has completely failed to apply the doctrine of proportionality while choosing to impose maximum penalty on the respondents owners the HC saidThe bench said it was in agreement with the tribunals finding and does not find anything perverse in its reasoning and conclusionIn 2013 the ED imposed a penalty of Rs 9835 crores on the owners of the franchise team after its preliminary probe revealed alleged irregularities under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act FEMAThe Rajasthan Royals team owners filed an appeal against this before the appellate tribunal which held the EDs order as unreasonable and reduced the amount to Rs 15 croreThe high court in its order noted the tribunal held that no loss was caused to the public exchequer and the remittances have come into India and remained in the countryThis is not a case where any foreign exchange has gone out of India Also the remittances were utilised for the purposes for which they were intended and there is not even an allegation of utilisation of the money for extraneous purposes it saidThe HC further said the tribunal has also found no justification in the order passed by the EDs special director for imposing maximum penalty on the ownersThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever