New Delhi:
The Adani Group, that had participated in the recent Indian Premier League auction for two new teams, has issued a statement refuting reports that their bidding papers had gone missing.
Reports surfaced earlier this week suggesting that the bidding papers of the Adani and the Videocon groups, which had bid unsuccessfully at the auction, were missing and the Income Tax department was hunting for them to close gaps in its investigations.
(Read: Adani, Videocon IPL bid papers go missing?)There have been allegations that when the first round of bidding took place, papers were tweaked to favour Dhoot of Videocon and the Adani group.
The Adanis have said that the bidding papers are not missing, that they have a copy and can furnish them for scrutiny.
This is the full text of the statement issued by the Adani group:
"The first round of bidding was cancelled. Therefore the bid documents were returned to the respective bidder unopened. This is normal practice to maintain confidentiality as the bidding itself was cancelled.
The documents of the second round from all bidders were opened at the ceremony and were retained by IPL. It is a normal practice to dispose off the bid documents from unsuccessful bidders after specified time, in-line with the guidelines framed by the organization, normally after the validity of the offer expires, in this case by IPL. The copies of the bid documents submitted by us have been retained by us and we are ready to provide the same to the authorities as we are perfectly on the right side of the law."