The 2013 Indian Premier League spot-fixing and betting case arose when the

Delhi Police The Delhi Police (DP) is the law enforcement agency for the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). Delhi Police comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India. In 2015, sanctioned strength of Delhi ...

arrested three

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

ers,

Sreesanth Shanthakumaran Nair Sreesanth (, born 6 February 1983) is an Indian former cricketer and film actor who played all forms of the game. He is a right-arm fast-medium-pace bowler and a right-handed tail-ender batsman. In first class cricket, he p ...

Ajit Chandila Ajit Chandila (born 5 December 1983) is a former Indian cricketer from Haryana. He played for Rajasthan Royals until 2013 but was previously known for his performance for the Air India North Zone team. Indian Premier League career His (IPL) ...

and Ankeet Chavan, on the charges of alleged spot-fixing. The three represented the Rajasthan Royals in the

2013 Indian Premier League The 2013 season of the Indian Premier League, abbreviated as IPL 6 or Pepsi IPL 2013, was the sixth season of the IPL, established by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2007. The tournament featured nine teams and was held fro ...

. In a separate case,

Mumbai Police The Mumbai Police (Marathi: मुंबई पोलीस, IAST: ''Mumbaī Pulīs'', formerly ''Bombay Police'') is the police department of the city of Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a part of Maharashtra Police and has the primary responsibiliti ...

arrested Vindu Dara Singh, Priyank Sepany (diamond dealer) and Chennai Super Kings Team Principal Gurunath Meiyappan for alleged betting. In July 2015, the RM Lodha Committee suspended India Cements and Jaipur IPL, owners of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals respectively, for two years. Additionally, Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan were cleared of all the charges after they were found not guilty by the Patiala House Courts. However, in January 2016, Chandila was given a life ban from all forms of cricket by the BCCI. In March 2019, the Supreme Court lifted the life ban imposed by BCCI on Sreesanth.

Investigation details

Sreesanth was arrested at his friend's house, whereas Chandila and Chavan were arrested from their team hotel in Mumbai. Rajasthan Royals suspended the contracts of the three players until the investigation was complete. Delhi police have claimed that Chavan has confessed being involved in the spot fixing. The police also claimed that Chandila had tried to get other players, including Chavan, involved in the spot fixing under the direction of the bookies. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) suspended the players till further investigation. BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale, said, "The BCCI is shocked and saddened at the recent developments. The BCCI has zero tolerance to corruption. We will offer all cooperation to the Delhi police and all other authorities in their investigations in this matter. The IPL Governing Council has met and decided that the cricketers found involved will be dealt with severely." On 4 June 2013, Delhi Police said that Sreesanth, Chandila, Chavan and 23 other people arrested by them in the spot-fixing scandal were going to be charged with the provisions of

Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (Mah. 30/1999) is a law enacted by the state of Maharashtra in India in 1999 to combat organised crime and terrorism. Known as 'MCOCA', the Act provides the State Government with special powe ...

(MCOCA) since they were acting under the command of underworld dons Dawood Ibrahim and

Chhota Shakeel Chhota Shakeel (born 31 December 1955) is an Indian crime boss and a high-ranking leader of the D-Company, a criminal group based in South Asia. He joined the D-Company in 1988 under the kingpin Dawood Ibrahim, and was reportedly responsible fo ...

. Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and 17 other people (including 14 alleged bookies) who were arrested by the Delhi Police were released on bail on 10 June 2013 by a Delhi court due to lack of evidence to be charged under MCOCA. Ajit Chandila had not applied for bail. Bombay High Court has sought investigation progress report from Mumbai Crime Branch during the hearing of a public interest litigation filed by social-activist Ketan Tirodkar. Delhi Police chief

Neeraj Kumar Neeraj Kumar is a film maker, actor, writer and director at Neerajfilms and software consultant based in the United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a co ...

said they had been taping phone calls since April 2013. He added, "Further arrests will be of bookies and no more players will be arrested." The International Cricket Council withdrew umpire Asad Rauf from the Champions Trophy in the wake of reports that the Mumbai Police were conducting an investigation into Asad Rauf's activities in the IPL spot fixing scandal.

Arrest of bookies

Sunil Bhatia, a bookie arrested by Delhi Police, said that he was involved in fixing in Indian Cricket League and

Bangladesh Premier League The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) ( bn, বাংলাদেশ প্রিমিয়ার লীগ) is a professional Twenty20 cricket league consisting of seven franchises. The BPL is one of the three professional cricket leagues in ...

besides the IPL leading to speculations that the entire fixing scandal runs even deeper. A team of Delhi Police Special Cell officers arrested Yahya Mohammad in the early hours of 24 May 2013 from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad in connection with the cricket betting. Ahmedabad Crime Branch arrested bookie Vinod Mulchandani from the Satellite Area of

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per t ...

city on 25 May 2013. 12.8 million INR in cash, laptops and mobile phones were seized from his possession. Vindu Dara Singh was arrested for alleged links to bookies in this spot fixing. He was later released on bail on 3 June 2013 by a Mumbai court.

Gurunath Meiyappan case

Call records of Vindu Dara Singh in connection with the betting scandal showed that he was in frequent contact with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) team principal and

BCCI president The President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India is the highest post at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which administers cricket in India. Though the post is an honorary one, it is considered a highly prestigious pos ...

N. Srinivasan Narayanaswami Srinivasan (born 3 January 1945) is an Indian industrialist. He is a former Chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and former President of the BCCI, the governing body for cricket in India. He is also the managing ...

's son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan. To investigate whether frequent calls to Meiyappan were for betting, Mumbai Police issued summons to him. On 24 May 2013, Gurunath Meiyappan was arrested on charges of betting, conspiracy and cheating after he was questioned by the Mumbai Crime Branch. After his arrest, the CSK franchise immediately disowned him. In a press statement on 24 May 2013, India Cements, which owns the CSK franchisee said: "Mr. Meiyappan is neither the owner, nor the CEO/Team Principal of the Chennai Super Kings. eis only one of the members (Honorary) of the management team of the Chennai Super Kings." The main reason for the immediate disowning of him was that, his arrest could lead to termination of the CSK franchise. This was because of the Clause 11.3 (c) of the Franchise Agreement, which stated On 26 May, BCCI announced that a three-member commission would investigate the role of Meiyappan in the spot-fixing and betting scandal. On 31 May 2013, a senior Mumbai Police official said that Meiyappanan had been found "Not Guilty" . Meiyappan was later released on bail by a Mumbai court, on 3 June 2013.

Raj Kundra case

On 5 June 2013, Rajasthan Royals team co-owner Raj Kundra was questioned by the

for alleged involvement in illegal betting. On 6 June 2013, Delhi Police claimed that he had confessed to them of placing bets on his IPL team through a bookie who was his friend. On 7 June 2013, Rajasthan Royals team management said that Raj Kundra would be suspended and all his shares in the team taken back if the charges against him of betting were proved. Because of this, he was suspended from the IPL by the BCCI on 10 June 2013.

Supreme court observation

On 25 March 2014, the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

told

to step down from his position on his own as

in order to ensure a fair investigation into the betting and spot-fixing charges levied against his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan who was team principal of Chennai Super Kings, else it would pass verdict asking him to step down. The Supreme court said it was "nauseating" that N. Srinivasan continued as BCCI chief.

Mukul Mudgal Committee

In October 2013,

appointed a three-member committee headed by Justice (Retd.)

Mukul Mudgal Justice Mukul Mudgal is a retired Indian judge of Delhi High Court, and remained Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2009 to 2011.Additional Solicitor General The Solicitor General of India (SGI) is subordinate to the Attorney General for India. They are the second-highest law officer of the country, assists the Attorney General, and is assisted by Additional Solicitor Generals of India (Addl. SGIs) ...

of India

L Nageswara Rao Lavu Nageswara Rao is a former Judge of Supreme Court of India. He is the 7th person elevated directly from the bar to the Supreme Court and was sworn in on May 13, 2016. He was a Senior advocate and a former Additional Solicitor General of Ind ...

and senior advocate and former cricket umpire Nilay Dutta. The former Indian Cricket Captain Sourav Ganguly has also been appointed as a part of the committee and a part of the investigating process of the committee.

Reactions

Initially, Sreesanth's father Shantakumaran Nair termed his son's arrest to be a "larger conspiracy", and blamed cricketers

MS Dhoni Mahendra Singh Dhoni (; born 7 July 1981) is an Indian former international cricketer who was captain of the Indian national cricket team in limited-overs formats from 2007 to 2017 and in Test cricket from 2008 to 2014. He is also the curren ...

and Harbhajan Singh for connecting his son with the scandal, but later retracted the statement. There were reports that the Delhi and the Mumbai police were in an unfriendly competition between each other and there was a lack of coordination between them. These reports were later dismissed by

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

Home minister R. R. Patil saying that the two teams were co-operating with each other to uncover the truth.

References

External links

IPL Spot-Fixing Coverage on Wisden India
{{Indian Premier League 2013 in Indian cricket Spot-fixing case Indian Premier League Sports betting scandals