Mumbai: It looks like the Indian Premier League (IPL) and controversies go hand-in-hand. The sixth edition of cricket’s most watched league took everyone by surprise. On May 16, 2013, the Delhi Police arrested three Rajasthan Royals players- S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan soon after their match in Mumbai for spot-fixing. Along with these cricketers, eleven bookies were also arrested at that time, Amit Singh, who was a former Rajasthan Royals player, being amongst one of them.
Following the major embarrassment, the Rajasthan franchise suspended their players the BCCI set up an enquiry headed by its Anti-Corruption and Security Unit Chief Ravi Sawani into their allegations.
Investigation timeline
1) This whole scenario triggered off a nation-wide campaign banning betting in the country. Police and anti-corruption units were mobilised to track down and arrest bookies prima facie. Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh was the first to be arrested on charges of having links with bookmakers.
The actor then provided officials with an important lead that led them to arrest Gurunath Meiyappan, the son-in-law of the BCCI president-in-exile N Srinivasan.
2) The Delhi Police eventually chargesheeted the players under the Indian Penal Code and the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act. Sawani’s probe found both Sreesanth and Chavan guilty and the duo was handed out life bans by the BCCI.
Following repeated investigations by the Justice Mugdal committee, the Supreme Court finally disclosed the names of the ones who were probed by the committee for having alleged links to the spot-fixing scam.
3) The names disclosed were BCCI president Srinivasan, BCCI Chief Operating Office Sunder Raman, Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra and Meiyappan.
The court then directed the findings of the Mugdal report on non-cricketers to be disclosed but Aditya Verma, Secretary of Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) revealed that the SC had only revealed seven names of the 13 who were named.
However, three names are of players while the others are officials and the court has kept the revealing of the names on hold till now.
