After the Mumbai Police played hardball and refused to entertain his request for time till Monday to appear for questioning in the IPl spot-fixing, BCCI chief and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) owner N Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan flew down to Mumbai and presented himself before the investigators on Friday evening. Meiyappan was staying put in his father-in-law’s estate-residence at Kodaikanal.
Meiyappan’s questioning began at 9.15 pm, and late in the night he was formally arrested.
Armed with revelations made by Vindoo Singh Randhawa — whose police remand has been extended till May 28 — about his proximity to Meiyappan and the Call Detail Records (CDRs) revealing call-transactions between the two and also with some key bookies, Mumbai’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy began grilling Meiyappan around 9.15 pm.
Though it was certain that the investigators would confront the CSK’s team principal with Vindoo on the claims made by the latter during the course of custodial interrogation early this week, it was not clear whether they would do immediately after the start of Meiyappan’s independent questioning or after one round of questioning.
Informed sources in the crime branch said that Meiyappan’s questioning would revolve around Vindoo’s claims that he was in constant touch with CSK’s team principal’ — a post that is equivalent to that Chief Executive Officer (CEO) — and that the actor had made a call to a bookie immediately after speaking to Meiyappan and had placed huge bets on IPl-6 matches and lost Rs1 crore.
The police might also question Meiyappan as to he had links with Pakistani umpire Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf, who was on Thursday withdrawn from the Champions Trophy tournament to be played in the United Kingdom from June 6 to 23.
Sources said that the investigators, who also believed to be in the possession of some transcripts of conversations involving Vindoo and others, would question Meiyappan as to whether he had placed bets on IPl cricket matches directly or indirectly, whether he was in direct touch with bookies or through Vinood or some other go-between person, and whether he had used the inside CSK team strategy-related information himself or passed onto go-betweens like Vindoo or bookies directly for use in the betting.
Meiyappan, who was spotted by television channel crews with his father-in-law N Srinivasan in the southern hill station of Kodaikanal shortly after noon, headed to Madurai around 2pm to fly to Mumbai. By then he had held consultations with Srinivasan and some lawyers on how to handle queries during the questioning by the city crime branch officials.
Having reached Madurai around 4.30 pm, Meiyappan -accompanied by a waiting team of senior lawyers - boarded a chartered aircraft to head to Mumbai.
Realising that he would not able to meet the 5 pm deadline set by the Mumbai crime branch officials to appear before them for questioning, he told the Mumbai crime branch top brass that he was in transit and he be given a few more hours more time to make his appearance - a request the investigators readily heeded. Meiyappan’s flight landed at the Mumbai airport around 7.20 pm. A handful of crime branch officials escorted him to the Mumbai crime branch headquarters by road.
Even as he was flying from Madurai to Mumbai, India Cements, the owner of IPl team Chennai Super Kings (CSK) dropped Meiyappan like a hot potato. Resorting to a damage control exercise, the company released an official statement in which it distanced its T20 franchise from Meiyappan and said that he was just an honorary member of the management. “India Cements clarifies that Mr Gurunath Meiyappan is neither the Owner, nor CEO / Team Principal of Chennai Super Kings. Mr Gurunath is only one of the Members (Honorary) of the Management Team of Chennai Super Kings.
To add to his owes, Srinivasan’s estranged son Ashwin has come out in public to allege Gurunath was into heavy betting over the years. “Guru had several connections with known bookies from Chennai and Dubai and was regularly in touch with them even before the IPl started,” he was quoted in media reports. “What began as a relatively smaller side-business became a full-fledged one over the years,” he added.