‘Kotla can host India-SA test match’, says Delhi High Court

In a major relief to the Delhi District Cricket Association, the Delhi High Court allowed its plea to host the fourth cricket test between South Africa and India at the Firoz Shah Kotla grounds.

The High Court directed the South Delhi Municipal Corporation to grant DDCA a provisional certificate  provided the sports body would furnish clearances from the  Land and Development Office (LDO), Delhi Urban Arts Commission (DUAC), Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) etc before March 31.

The plea was moved by DDCA after the Commissioner of Excise and Entertainment Tax had refused to pass any order on DDCA’s request to keep the entertainment tax in abeyance till the match ended. DDCA has to cough out 24.45 crores in entertainment taxes to the Delhi Govt in order to be permitted for hosting the match.

While the Division Bench of Justices BD Ahmed & Sanjeev Sachdeva will hear the petition on this limited aspect of payment of entertainment tax today, it directed the DDCA to make a payment of 50 lakhs as property tax within a period of two weeks to the Delhi Government. Advocate Sunil K Mittal appeared for DDCA and Gaurang Kanth appeared for the SDMC.

Kanth had argued that the Corporation had not issued the completion certificate as DDCA had ‘failed to obtain clearances from relevant departments.’ Kanth had also mentioned that the sports body had also not complied with ‘other conditions’ such as building an overhead foot bridge to the stadium. Highlighting the fact that this was not the only instance where the body had knocked the doors of the Court, Kanth further stated that the Court had previously granted provisional occupancy to DDCA ’13 times’.