New Delhi, Aug 1: A city court on Wednesday issued notices to Rajasthan Royals' players Santhakumran Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and 19 others accused in the alleged spot-fixing of IPL matches following an application for cancellation of their bail.
It also extended the judicial custody of Rajasthan Royals spinner Ajit Chandila, Baburao Yadav and six others.
This was following the chargesheet filed by the special cell of the Delhi police that named underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, and the Dawood-Chota Shakeel syndicate as the main conspirators for controlling illegal betting and fixing in India.
The police had named 39 accused, including Dawood and Sreesanth and booked all of them under the provisions of Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA).
Additional sessions judge Renu Bhatnagar on Wednesday took cognizance of the chargesheet submitted by the Delhi Police.
Of the 39 accused, 10 including underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his associates Chotta Shakeel, Javed Chutani, Salim are absconding. Twenty one including Sreesanth and Chavan are on bail, while eight including Chandila, Yadav are in custody.
According to the prosecution, since the chargesheet includes stringent provisions of MCOCA, which does not allow for bail, the June order granting bail to 21 accused is likely to be revoked.
The arguments for cancellation of bail is scheduled for August 19. Meanwhile, the prosecution shall advance arguments against granting of bail to the eight accused on August 7.
Rajiv Mohan, public prosecutor in the case told the court on Wednesday that the chargesheet brings fresh evidence to light including "close to 2000 text messages regarding betting, fixing and hawala transactions".
Mohan told the court that the SMS evidence was particularly damaging since it contained texts such as "CSK pe yeh rate laga do" and "Mumbai Indians ka rate 13 chal raha hai".
The defence counsels strongly objected to the arguments of the public prosecutor stating that the chargesheet does not contain anything new and that his arguments are meant to delay the proceedings in this case. "It is the same story all over again with three times the spacing," a defence lawyer told the judge referring to the 6,000 page chargesheet.
The Delhi police on May 16 had arrested cricketers and bookies on charges of spot fixing. Later on June 3, charges had been framed under MCOCA on grounds that they had been acting under instructions of Dawood and Shakeel. Bail had been granted to 21 accused on June 10. The arguments on the bail of eight others continued throughout July.
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