Former MCA functionaries allegedly favoured vendor

Shillong, July 6: Allegations have come to the fore against  Meghalaya Cricket Association (MCA) treasurer Dhrubajyoti Thakuria and secretary Rayonald Kharkamni for clearing payments of more than Rs 1.55 crore to a vendor whose Goods and Services Tax (GST) registration had lapsed.

In response, Kharkamni said that Apex Council authorises the secretary to clear all the payments and the council did not raise any objections.

However, the allegations are that they continued to authorise the payments for more than a year after the association’s internal auditor first flagged the vendor by name, according to Deloitte’s internal audit records.

Under MCA’s constitution, payments of this scale are to be first cleared by the Apex Council, the association’s governing body, before account signatories can release funds. Audit records show that Thakuria and Kharkamni instead cleared the payments themselves, without apex council approval, bypassing the process laid down in MCA’s own constitution.

The vendor, an Assam-based firm called M/s Ricon Business, had defaulted on its GST filings since September 2023, the audit records show. Its GST registration was cancelled on May 21, 2025 over the non-compliance. Payments to the vendor continued through this entire period, exposing MCA to input tax credit losses running into several lakhs of rupees in each audit cycle.

The finding was flagged repeatedly. Deloitte named the vendor across multiple successive audit reports. Records show no evidence that MCA responded to the warnings or took corrective action, even as they communicated to the auditor that the treasurer and secretary would be kept informed. Thakuria and Kharkamni continued clearing payments to the vendor.

Section 132 of the CGST Act allows such offences to be treated as cognisable.

Kharkamni had previously sought to end MCA’s relationship with Deloitte, the auditor that raised these findings. At an Apex Council meeting on January 13, 2026, he argued for discontinuing Deloitte’s services as internal auditor stating that the services were not value-for-money.

An internal auditor is required to be maintained under the Lodha Committee reforms mandated by the Supreme Court. The BCCI as well as all state cricket associations are mandated to have internal auditors.

However, Kharkamni asserted that the Apex Council authorises the secretary to clear all the payments to the vendor.

“It is the job of the account team to check the GST or any taxation part of the vendors….when they find any non compliance of GST etc. by a vendor…. they have to take up with the vendors concerned directly. It is not the duty of the secretary or treasurer to go through the tax matters as they are not experts on these’, he said, adding Deloitte never asked them to stop any payment and the  queries regarding the vendors were addressed by accountants.

If there is any delay in filing the GST by the vendors, our account team has to take up wirh the vendor as per the queries and suggestions from the internal audit. Had there been any unauthorised payment made, the apex body would have raised objection to it.

“No member of the former apex body raised any objection to clearing of the bills to the vendors….all appreciated the timely payments”, he said.

Taxation matter is the responsibility of the accountants…to check and follow up if there is any non- compliance on the part of the vendor…..Our job is to to look for the timely clearance of bills for the services we have utilised from the vendors concerned’, he said.