New Delhi, April 23: Another controversy has hit the India Premier League (IPL) as the BCCI is said to be up in arms after discovering that former BCCI president and owner of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), N Srinivasan, has valued CSK at at just Rs 5 lakh.

As per reports, the new IPL governing council has objected to the amount at which the team was valued by its owners Chennai Super Kings Ltd.

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"Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was present as a special invitee, was the first to raise the issue. He insisted that it wasn't possible for CSK to be valued at Rs 5 lakh when India Cements has been paying an annual franchise fee of Rs 40 crore to the BCCI," a source was quoted as saying in the Indian Express.

With the owners claiming that the team is worth Rs 5 lakh, the BCCI received just Rs 25,000 from its sale to the new owners. The owners evaluation comes under the scanner even as a US-based consultancy valued the team at Rs 450 crore in 2014.

After the Supreme Court cited conflict of interest and ordered that Srinivasan could contest the BCCI elections only if he gave up ownership of the franchise, India Cements had decided to transfer CSK to a new subsidiary, Chennai Super Kings Ltd.

"In case of such a transfer, the franchise is levied a 5 per cent fee of the evaluation amount, and 5 per cent of Rs 5 lakh is pittance. The members voiced their dissent over this discrepancy," the source was quoted as saying.

In January 2015, the Supreme Court held that the allegation of betting against Gurunath Meiyappan, a CSK team official and son-in-law of the BCCI President-in-exile and Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra stands proved while the charge of cover up against Srinivasan "is not proved".

Striking down rules that permitted BCCI office bearers to have a commercial interest by owning teams in the hugely-popular Indian Premier League and Champions League, a two-member bench of Justices TS Thakur and FMI Khalifulla, said, "Amendment in the BCCI rules allowing Srinivasan to own IPL team is bad as conflict of interest in cricket leads to great confusion."

"No one who has commercial interest including N Srinivasan shall be eligible for any post in the BCCI and this disqualification on ground of commercial interest shall continue till such commercial interest will exist," the bench said while asking BCCI to hold its AGM for electing office bearers within six weeks.

It said Srinivasan being BCCI chief and as Managing Director of India Cements Ltd, which owned the Chennai Super Kings created a situation of conflict of interest.

The contention that Srinivasan held a Small share in India Cements Limited, owners of CSK, was misleading since his family directly or indirectly holds much more control in the company.

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