SPECIAL REPORT By Sandeep Bamzai: The Great Fixing Conspiracy & Great Contradictions

DECEMBER 16 IS looming large on the radar. It will decide what course the 'flawed' Delhi Police case of 'money for fixing' against cricketers S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan will take from here on.  Based on Delhi Police's (DP) challenge to the trial court discharge order of July 25 against the troika of 'tainted' cricketers and 33 other accused, Delhi High Court has sought replies from all of them on that day.

The sensational 2013 IPL 6 spot fixing scandal may return to the front pages with a spring-loaded action if the High Court believes there is enough evidence for prosecution on the 6,000 page DP chargesheet. Significantly, the high court, while issuing notice to the respondents, also called for the trial court records on the appeal filed by Delhi Police which had moved the appeal on September 2. 

So, did the Delhi cops fail to connect the dots and provide ample corroborative evidence to seal the deal? Or did they over-reach in their investigation by going over the top by enlarging the scope of the case with the use of the draconian MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) and magnified circumstantial evidence as the real thing? More than that what earned the ire of the trial court was the slapping of MCOCA on the accused. The trial court believed that the haphazardly compiled case didn't have legs to stand on.

The trial court had shockingly trashed Delhi Police's theories and the case itself by stating that it had failed to gather “all necessary ingredients to establish a prima facie case” under the dreaded MCOCA, which had been slapped on the accused. Further, the trial court had, while throwing out the case, argued that DP was unable to establish any “nexus” or linkage between them and crime syndicate allegedly controlled by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his associate Chhota Shakeel, who, along with one Sandeep, were declared proclaimed offenders in the case. Three other accused — Javed Chutani, Salman and Ehtesham — all were Pakistani nationals and the police could not lay their hands on them. Assailing the verdict, the appeal has contended that the trial court order was unsustainable.

A furious Delhi Police has averred that the order was unsustainable and forcefully argued that the logic and conclusions put forth for discharging the accused was not correct. Now let me introduce a very important element in this jigsaw. If Sreesanth is not guilty as the trial court contended, why has the BCCI not lifted the ban on him? Simply because the needle of suspicion continues to point at him. And why have Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings been banned from the IPL for two years by the cricket board appointed committee? Is MCOCA the only stumbling block, or is there a cover up underway? If the BCCI has established guilt by banning the two franchises involved and not lifting the bar on Sreesanth to play, then there is definitely something afoot. Let us be mindful also of the fact that the trial court's order is in complete variance with the cricket board's position which clearly smells a fraud perpetrated on the minds of cricket savants in the country.

Delhi Police's reasoning was that it had incontrovertible evidence that Sreesanth's 'towel for bribe' act was done in collusion with childhood friend and bookie Jiju Janardhan. 

The case made out against them reads like this:

Their  shopping bills were allegedly settled with bookies' payoffs for spot-fixing during the IPL; money was seized from Ajit Chandila's family, but they in turn insisted it came from the sale of an ancestral property; the alleged phone intercepts that connected one cricketer directly with bookies, and another with a childhood friend and alleged bookie did not amount to anything. The money seized included Rs 20 lakh from the home of an aunt of Chandila. From Sreesanth, police seized Rs 5 lakh, part of an alleged instalment of Rs 10 lakh. Police said they have evidence of where he spent the rest, but could not explain how they will establish that the money did come from bookies. And in Chavan's case, he was arrested before he received the money he had supposedly been promised. Sreesanth, member of the 2007 and 2011 World Cup winning teams, was paid Rs 10 lakh, and that it was the first tranche out of a total committed Rs 40 lakh. They recovered Rs 5 lakh from him while the rest, it was claimed, was spent on throwing three parties at a five-star hotel in Jaipur, buying jeans worth Rs 1.93 lakh from the Diesel store in Juhu, and gifting a Blackberry each to two women friends -- Sakshi Jhala and Deepika. The bills and the Blackberrys were  recovered, but Delhi Police could not conclusively prove how this could be linked to the spot fixing payment.

In the first week of May 2013, P. Jiju Janardanan @Jiju took Rs. 10 Lakhs in cash from Chandresh Patel at J.W Marriot Hotel at Jaipur. Another accused, Abhishek Shukla, was arrested on 28.05.2013, a friend  of the accused S. Sreesanth and P. Jiju Janardhan. DP claimed that after  S. Sreesanth and P. Jiju Janardhan's arrest, he removed cash amounting to Rs.5.5 lakhs and the phones from their room at Hotel Sofitel, Mumbai and decamped. This cash of Rs.5.5 lakhs was recovered from his Flat No.3, Vabhibari Co­operative Housing Society, No.4 Bunglow, Church Lane, West MumbaI. Also, CCTV footage recorded on 16.05.2013 of Hotel Sofitel shows that he had removed the articles from the room, after the arrest of accused S. Sreesanth.

The defence argued that the only incriminating evidence relied upon by the prosecution is the conversation between Jiju and Chandresh Patel @Chand (bookie) where Jiju is heard telling Chandresh Patel that "he is little stubborn about this. He is playing after a long time and he is risking time.... maine usko samjha diya, but he did not want to take risk." This conversation is of  May 9, 2013 at 12.13 p.m. and is, therefore, closest to the point of time to the match in question. It revealed Sreesanth's state of mind and intent.

The defence argued that in order to invoke Section 3 and 4 of MCOCA against the accused S. Sreesanth, Jiju Janardhan and Abhishek Shukla, the first requirement is that they must be shown to be members of the Organised Crime Syndicate. MCOCA, the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, was passed in the state in 1999,to curtail the rise of gangsters and the underworld. MCOCA could  be invoked when any one of the accused has two or more previous pending cases with chargesheets filed. These cases need not be related to the MCOCA case. In the current case, the accused included Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel, allowing Delhi police to invoke it on the cricketers too. Moreover, for MCOCA to stick, there should be "continuing unlawful activity" which means that there should be some nexus or linkage shown between these three accused and the alleged crime syndicate, which was found wanting.

Chandila, prima facie, appeared to be an open and shut case; out of a committed Rs 40 lakh from the bookies in lieu of giving away 13 runs in an over, he was paid Rs 20 lakh which was recovered from Palwal. Police also recovered bills from a Delhi optician and a Mumbai mall, the latter for a watch and two pairs of jeans, and say all of these were paid with bookie Chandresh Patel's debit card -- not in itself an act of cheating. Further, police claimed that  Chandila had received Rs 12 lakh for last year's IPL from arrested bookie Sunil Bhatia. He did not, however, figure in the playing XI and police say he repaid Bhatia with three cheques, each for Rs 4 lakh. Two of these bounced, said police, adding they have recovered both. It was also argued that even Section 120­B IPC** is not applicable as Ajit Chandila had neither done any illegal activity nor any other activity by illegal means. Ajit Chandila was arrested on 16.05.13.

During the scrutiny of mobile numbers of Sunil Bhatia and Kiran Dole, the underworld conduit cum henchmen, it was revealed that they both were in touch with Ajit Chandila through mobile numbers 56xxxxxxxx14, 97xxxxxx41, 98xxxxxxx19 (which is subscribed in his name) and 93807xxxxx that were being used by him. These mobile numbers were taken on lawful interception and it was established that Sunil Bhatia and Kiran Dole were in touch with Ajay Chandila during IPL 6 through other cricketers, namely Manish Guddewar (97xxxxxx07 number) and Babu Rao Yadav (90xxxxxx76). The continuous monitoring of intercepted numbers further revealed that Ajit Chandila was also in touch with many bookies and was receiving huge amounts of money in lieu of spot/session fixing. The lawful interception led to accused Chand Bhai (91xxxxxx55) and accused Manan Bhat (87xxxxxx24 and 99xxxxxx55), who were also found to be fixing Ajit Chandila and other players of Rajasthan Royals in lieu of money, girls and gifts. The monitoring of Ajit Chandila number further led to co-­accused Babu Rao Yadav (95xxxxxx18), who in turn was found linked with  financier Vicky Chaudhary, Vinod Sharma and Nitin Jain; all three are co­-accused in this case. It has been further established through interceptions that Ajit was also in touch with another fixer from Punjab namely Deepak who is also a co­accused. Deepak in turn was found linked with Rakesh @Rocky and Sandeep Sharma @Sandi both of whom were financiers for above said Deepak.

In his disclosure statement, Chandila said that two watches were recovered which were gifted to him by bookie Chand alias Chandresh Patel, the fixer as part of advance for spot fixing. The receipts collected from the stores from where these watches were purchased shows that the payments were made by Chand @Chandresh Patel. Further, the record bills of Hotel JW Marriot, Jaipur of April 2013, establish that he had stayed there as member of Rajasthan Royals team, along with accused Chandresh Patel and others to plan and execute spot fixing during IPL 6 cricket matches.

Ajit Chandila also disclosed that he had been gifted expensive sunglasses in 2012, by Sunil Bhat which he had purchased from Khan Market, Delhi. Chandler also disclosed having received Rs. 12 lacs from Sunil Bhatia in spot fixing in IPL5 in 2012, but he was forced to return the said money to Sunil Bhatia since he was unable to provide the requisite under performance to which he had agreed. During the investigations, one cheque of  Rs 4 lakh was found to be debited in the account of Sunil Bhatia. Two more cheques of Rs. 4 lakh each were recovered from Sunil Bhatia at the time of his arrest and both these cheques were found to have been dishonored due to insufficient funds.

The prosecution's case against Ankeet Chavan was that the probe revealed that he was an employee of Air India and was playing for Rajasthan Royals in IPL6. He was involved in spot/session fixing on 15.05.2013 in a match between Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians at Mumbai and had taken Rs.60 lakhs in cash in lieu thereof. He had met bookie Jitender Jain through Chandresh Patel to join in the conspiracy of spot fixing in lieu of  payoffs. He was arrested on  May 16, 2013, in Mumbai. Witness and cricketer Sidharth Trivedi, in his statement under Section 164 CrPC, had disclosed that Ankeet Chavan along with other players used to go for parties together. 

Likewise, witness Harmeet Singh in his statement under Section 164 CrPC had disclosed that Ajit had informed that Ankit and Sreesanth were their people and they would together collude to underperform. Statement of theses two witnesses also support the allegations of spot fixing against him. It was further claimed that in the month of March, 2013 he had met Kiran Dhole, Ashwani Aggarwal, Ajit Chandila in Delhi which was primarily for the spot session fixing conspiracy. It is further submitted that 3 mobiles phones were also recovered from him. Scrutiny of call details of these numbers show that he had the links with the bookies. Also, the intercepted voice calls amongst Ankeet Chavan, Ajit Chandila, and Chandresh and others also show that he had agreed to participate in spot fixing.

Delhi Police charge sheeted them for cheating and conspiracy under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), while alleging Dawood and Shakeel were behind the spot-fixing scandal. Trial court judge was firm with the response in the 175-page order where it was said, "...even if entire evidence of prosecution is accepted, then too it is not established that there exists a core crime syndicate of Dawood, Chhota Shakeel who have been indulging in the organised offence of betting and match fixing and also dealing with money so generated through hawala."  While MCOCA was out, the judge did  say that at best the case could have been under Public Gambling Act, but "that also is not prima facie established from the evidence placed on record by the prosecution". The court also observed that the game of cricket is a game of skill and cannot be held as a game of chance, therefore it is exempted under a section of this act from the definition of gambling. "...in view of the huge vacuum of law in this regard in the realm of law, this court is helpless to proceed further under any of the penal statutes," it said. "The offence of cheating is also not made out prima facie, even if the entire evidence of prosecution is admitted without formal proof," the court said.

Proper closure is required in this case, for, if these matches were fixed, which to the naked eye they appear to be, then the guilty should be convicted by a court of law. If the BCCI thinks there is a fraud, then the Delhi High Court should re-examine the case on merit and pass judgment. The case has thrown into stark relief the belief with which ordinary spectators go and watch a match. One now questions openly the illusion which becomes a reality of what one sees on a cricket field. A strong judgment has to bring back respect for cricketers and cricket and ensure that the perps don't get away with blue murder.

(Sandeep Bamzai is a sports junkie, editor & author. Currently a Visiting Fellow at ORF.  Disclaimer: The views expressed are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of The Fan Garage)