In a major setback to the Delhi police, a court indicted them for slapping the stringent provisions of MCOCA on cricketers S Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and 17 others and granted the accused bail in the IPL spot-fixing case.
“There is no reason for believing that the accused are guilty under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) at this stage,” additional sessions judge Vinay Kumar Khanna said.
Besides the 19 accused in the spot-fixing scandal who were granted bail by the court, six others are in judicial custody till June 18 while one of the alleged bookies, Ramesh Vyas, is in police custody till June 18. Chandila and six others have not yet applied for bail. “After probing into the matter deeply and going into the materials placed before the court, this court finds that there is no sufficient material on record to establish that there is a nexus of accused with the organised crime syndicate,” the judge said.
The police failed to satisfy the court and place on record evidence to justify its decision to slap charges under MCOCA for being involved in organised crime syndicate operated by don Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel. “I have to examine the evidence and then only, I will be able to decide the matter and whether these people have nexus with underworld people sitting outside,” the judge said.
The remarks by the judge came when the police said it would not be in a position to place before it the documents and evidence before June 18 as the probe was in an initial stage.
“It will be misuse of provisions of MCOCA, so you will have to give relevant documents. If you have booked them under MCOCA, it means you must be having proper sanction and sufficient evidence against each of them,” the court said.
During the late evening hearing, additional public prosecutor Rajeev Mohan said Dawood, Shakeel, Javed Churani and Salman were in constant touch with the bookies including Ramesh Vyas.
When the court wanted evidence for slapping MCOCA, the prosecutor said investigators have the transcripts of the intercepted conversations between Dawood and Vyas, which were read out in the court. The transcripts referred to a conversation about a deal in which Rs. 10 million and Rs. 9 million were mentioned which was finally settled at Rs. 7 million, the police said but added the purpose of the deal was not clear.
To this, the court asked the police to clarify. “Do you have direct evidence that Sreesanth and any of the players were in direct touch with Dawood?” The prosecutor replied in the negative but said they have got the transcripts of conversations in which Sreesanth’s friend Jiju Janardan, a bookie, was in touch with Vyas. “We have conversations of Dawood Ibrahim with bookies and bookies used to fix the players, in which Sreesanth was found talking to one bookie Jiju Janardhan about the amount he will accept for favouring them,” the prosecutor said.
The court, while granting bail to the 19 accused, said it is prima facie not satisfied with the allegation that offences punishable under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC are made out against the accused at this stage.
The judge said the accused persons are not “habitual offenders” and have clean antecedents and they are not likely to flee from justice. The court directed the accused to submit their passports before it and asked them not go out of India without its prior permission.
The court said there is prima facie “no sufficient material” against the accused to establish their “nexus” with organised crime syndicate. The police had earlier admitted that they had no proof to establish that Sreesanth was in direct contact with the gang of Dawood Ibrahim.
Besides the two cricketers, the court also granted the relief to 17 accused, including 14 bookies, on a personal bond of 50,000 with one surety of the like amount.
Two member probe panel to investigate Kundra
Meanwhile, the committee adhered to the same action for Kundra as initiated against Chennai Super Kings team principal Gurunath Meiyappan, under investigation for betting in IPL-6.
Kundra, who the Delhi Police claim has confessed to betting in this year’s IPL, will face a probe by a two-member commission comprising Justice T Jayaram Chouta and Justice R Balasubramanian.
The same panel is also investigating Meiyappan’s alleged involvement in betting practices.
“The working committee decided to suspend Raj Kundra on allegations of gambling on IPL-6 matches till the pendency of inquiry,” BCCI’s interim chief Jagmohan Dalmiya said after the meeting.
Both cases are strikingly similar but Dalmiya said the two cannot be compared and the board does not want to frighten anybody by taking tough decisions without a probe.
“We are not comparing the two. We have got the report. Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar grilled Kundra for 11 hours and admitted that Kundra was involved in betting. IPL CEO Sundar Raman has also got a complaint from one person.
“The Rajasthan Royals’ role in the issue is being looked into but without getting hold of the facts, we don’t want to frighten anybody,” Dalmiya said in response to a question on why the franchise were not suspended.
The BCCI’s Anti Corruption and Security Unit head Ravi Sawani submitted his report on the spot-fixing scandal before the committee which was forwarded to the disciplinary committee of the board, comprising Arun Jaitley and Niranjan Shah.
The two member panel will hear the players’ side of the story before framing the charges. Sidelined BCCI president N Srinivasan ceded to be a member of the committee after stepping aside from BCCI top post.
Sanjay Patel and Ravi Sawant to don roles of BCCI secretary and Treasurer respectively
Among other decisions, the working committee ratified the election of Sanjay Patel as its honorary secretary and also named Mumbai Cricket Association president Ravi Sawant as the new treasurer. As far as the operation clean-up is concerned, the board will convene another meeting of the working committee to take the proposal forward.
Sources revealed that the meeting got off to a stormy start with Punjab Cricket Association president I S Bindra questioning the authority of the interim chief in calling up a such a meeting. Bindra, however, could not keep up the tempo of his protest after he was shown a rule which allowed Dalmiya to do so when he is backed by at least five members of the board.
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