An over-enthusiast Delhi Police faced the ire of city court which snubbed it for invoking MCOCA charges against the accused in the IPl spot-fixing scandal. The court, while granting bail to cricketers S Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and 17 others, said it was a misuse of the MCOCA provisions as police failed to produce records that established their nexus with organised crime syndicate.
The court refused to believe that any charge under MCOCA was made out against them at this stage.
“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. The court said there is prima facie no sufficient material against the accused to establish their nexus with organised crime syndicate.
“There are allegations of bookies betting and players fixing for the syndicate. After probing into the matter and going through the materials placed before the court, this court finds that there is no sufficient material on record to establish their ‘nexus’ with the organised crime syndicate,” the judge said.
The Delhi Police has so far arrested 26 people, including Sreesanth and two of his Rajasthan Royals teammates - Chavan and Ajit Chandila - in connection with the case.
The police failed to place on record evidence to justify its decision to slap charges under MCOCA for being involved in an organised crime syndicate operated by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel.
“I have to examine the evidence and then only, I will be able to decide whether or not these people have a nexus with underworld people sitting outside,” the judge said.
The remarks by the judge came when the police said it will not be in a position to present the documents and evidence before June 18 as the probe was in an initial stage. “It will be a misuse of provisions of the 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.
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.
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 DawoodIJ”
The prosecutor replied in negative but said they have got the transcripts of conversations in which Sreesanth’s friend Jiju Janardan, a bookie, was in touch with Vyas.