A battle royale is being witnessed in the premier club of Mumbai, the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) at Worli, with rival factions waging a no-holds barred contest. Elections to the 49-member NSCI managing committee are scheduled for March 26 (Sunday), and both camps are queering the pitch.
Recently, the United Active Force (UAF) held a meeting at the Nehru Centre nearby where a frontal attack was made on the existing committee led by secretary Atul Maru.
The UAF, which is challenging the existing NSCI establishment, is demanding that the club be brought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act even though it is not a government institution.
Club is staring at a massive loss
A prominent member of the UAF, Yogesh Dhameja, claimed that the club is staring at a massive loss of Rs354 crore and not Rs145 crore as was projected earlier. He said those responsible for this shocking state of affairs must be made accountable. He said until 2012-13, the club was being run on profitable lines, but after that there has been a steady decline.
However, supporters of the present dispensation said the “actual loss” is relatively less. Citing from the balance sheet of the past three financial years – 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-2022 – a member said the break-up included depreciation of Rs56.27 crore, provision for property tax of Rs29.50 crore (which is accounted but yet to be paid), provision for BMC penalties accrued since 2014 is Rs10.62 crore and has been partly paid. After accounting for these figures, the operational loss for the three years is Rs49.69 crore.
A source observed, “Along with the other income sources, there were also expenditures on other utilities and facilities of the club. The large chunk of expenditure was for salaries, to the tune of Rs 56.08 crore for these three years. The main sources of income are SVP Stadium and Chambers. However, due to COVID-19, SVP Stadium was not operational for almost two and a half years,” a source observed.
Police intervention was needed
The situation at the club has reached such a point that the intervention of the police has been sought as reported by the FPJ earlier. An FIR for cheating and criminal breach of trust has been filed against five persons. Maru was summoned for questioning by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police on March 15.
The complaint to the EOW was filed by the management following a forensic audit of the NSCI conducted by KPMG, a renowned audit, tax and advisory services firm. However, the audit report has not been made available to the members yet. This is one of the main grouses of the UAF. Maru said he is not one of the five accused persons and that he was called in by the cops only as a witness.
The prestigious club has as many as 18,000 members, including several corporate bigwigs and celebrities.
The alleged offences include Indian Penal Code’s sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and sections for other alleged offences. The notice to Maru was sent under section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) by Senior Inspector Prinam Parab of Unit III (General Cheating I) of the EOW.
