The Mumbai police crime branch will file an 11,609-page chargesheet in the Indian Premier League scandal on Saturday. The police claims it has made a watertight case against the 22 arrested accused, including CSK team principal Gurunath Meiyappan and actor Vindoo Dara Singh, as 80 per cent of their evidence is technical evidence that will stand strong scrutiny in court.
Highly-placed sources say the chargesheet will be restricted to only betting and will not focus on spot-fixing in IPL matches. The chargesheet will name Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf as a suspect in the case, but not as an accused, another source confirmed.
Meiyappan and the other accused have been charged under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, Sections 4 and 5 of the Gambling Act and IPC Sections 465, 466, 468, 471, 490, 420, 212, 120B and 34. Bookies Sanjay Jaipur and Pawan Jaipur have not been arrested as the Bombay high court has given them till September 30 to move the Supreme Court for anticipatory bail after it rejected the same.
The naming of Gurunath Meiyappan is a setback for BCCI president N. Srinivasan in the ongoing IPL cases he faces. But, having disassociated himself from his son-in-law in cleverly describing Mr Meiyappan as an “enthusiastic person” of the India Cements-owned IPL team CSK and not its “Team Principal” or “Owner”, it