India's leading cricketer Sachin Tendulkar could find himself batting on a different wicket soon after the World Cup.
The master batsman is scheduled to appear before the disciplinary committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India to present his case against chartered accountant Madhav S Bhatkande, Tendulkar's former tax adviser and consultant, for breach of trust.
Based on a complaint filed by Tendulkar about two years ago, ICAI's council has referred the matter to its disciplinary committee.
The cricketer's brother, Ajit, who is following up the matter with ICAI, could not be contacted.
Bhatkande said the dispute began over a loan that he took from Tendulkar which was to be returned once fees due to the chartered accountants' firm were paid.
Bhatkande said he had been advising Tendulkar on tax matters as well as issues such as contract negotiations since 1989, the year Sachin made his international debut. Initially there were no contracts signed by either party and there were no disputes either, he said.
In February 1996 Bhatkande, a practising member of ICAI since April 1972, took a short-term loan of Rs 25 lakh (rs 2.5 million) from the cricketer.
It was agreed that the dues would be cleared as soon as the work assigned to Bhatkande's firm was over. A contract till March 1996 was in place at the time.
Bhatkande said the job included negotiating multi-million dollar deals with WorldTel and Philips among the 35 or 36 items on the list. "My firm spent nearly 1,700 hours on the job," he said.
The Mumbai-based chartered accountant then billed Tendulkar Rs 42.5 lakh (Rs 4.25 million) for these services.
Bhatkande said despite reminders, the fees were not paid so his firm approached the Bombay high court in May 1999 to settle its dues. We told the court that the loan (from Tendulkar) would be returned once our dues were cleared, he said. The matter was sub-judice.
Bhatkande said the fee was communicated to Tendulkar when he took the loan, and that, at the time, almost 90 per cent of the services had been executed.
Bhatkande also said that the reasonableness of the bill was confirmed by solicitor G G Desai in 1997. "My partner, Sachin's brother and his father had accompanied me when we went to the solicitor," he added.
ICAI sources said Sachin's case was also supported by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
