Just weeks before the Telangana assembly election, Mohammed Azharuddin, the former captain of India’s cricket team and current Congress nominee, is experiencing legal challenges, as he is been accused of corruption and embezzlement of funds. According to reports, Telangana’s Rachakonda Police on Monday, November 6, registered 4 cases of corruption against the scam-tainted former Indian skipper.
Some other office bearers and previous members of HCA have also been named in the FIR.
#TelanganaElections: 4 cases against Congress candidate Mohammad Azharuddin over alleged corruption.https://t.co/hIbjHMEt13
— India Today NE (@IndiaTodayNE) November 6, 2023
The former Indian cricket captain has reportedly approached the Malkajgiri Court seeking bail in all four cases registered against him.
Last month the Hyderabad Police said that criminal cases had been filed against former cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin and some other former officer bearers of the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) over alleged misappropriation of funds up to Rs 3.85 crore.
Other than former HCA president Mohammed Azharuddin, those named in the FIR are former secretary R Vijay Anand and former treasurer Surender Agarwal. The case against the accused persons was registered on a complaint lodged by Association Chief Executive Officer Suneel Kante Bose.
The accused persons had been booked with criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy in violation of IPC sections 406, 409, 420, 465, 467, 469, and 120-B.
They were accused of misappropriating money while procuring gym equipment, cricket balls, fire extinguishers, and bucket seats for the HCA’s premises as well as the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium.
The alleged misappropriation of HCA funds and diversion of funds to private agencies under the guise of supplying material to the HCA, which occurred between March 2020 and February 2023, was discovered during a forensic audit conducted by a private firm at the request of the HCA.
Furthermore, police have registered three additional cases in relation to the players submitting forged age certificates to play in underage teams. An investigation has been initiated into that as well.
The former Indian cricket team captain Mohammed Azharuddin’s life has been full of controversies. In 2020, a complaint was registered against him in Aurangabad, Maharashtra for allegedly duping a travel agent off Rs 21 lakh.
Mohammed Azharuddin had a controversial cricket career
Mohammed Azharuddin was banned for life from Cricket by BCCI in 2000 after he was named by disgraced South African Captain Hansie Cronje as the man who introduced Cronje to bookies. High Court quashed the ban in 2012 but BCCI never officially lifted the ban. However, they did allow him to contest the Hyderabad Cricket Association elections.
Azharuddin had contested the 2009 general elections on a Congress ticket from the Moradabad seat and had won. In the 2014 elections, he was the Congress candidate from the Tonk-Sawai Madhopur seat but lost. Named working president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee in 2018, he was disappointed in the 2019 general elections as the party denied him tickets, from both Secunderabad and Hyderabad constituencies.
This time again, for the Telangana Assembly elections, which will be held in the state on November 30, Congress has placed its bet on the scam-tainted Azharuddin and is fielding him from the Jubilee Hills constituency in Hyderabad. Though Azharuddin has not yet filed the nomination for the upcoming assembly polls, the 4 new cases of alleged corruption registered against him, will have a significant impact on his election campaign as the opposition will surely use the alleged corruption charges to target the Congress candidate.
