In a major setback to the Delhi Police, a Delhi court chided them for slapping the stringent provisions of Mcoca on cricketers S Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and 17 others and granted the accused bail in the IPL spot-fixing case without substantial evidence to prove their underworld links.

 

"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 and blasted the cops. The court said there is prima facie "no sufficient material" against the accused to establish their "nexus" with organised crime syndicate. Besides the two cricketers, the court also granted the relief to 17 other accused, including 14 bookies, on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with one surety of the like amount.

 

"There are allegations of betting by bookies and fixing by players for benefiting the syndicate. After probing into the matter deeply and going into the materials placed before the court, this court finds that there is no sufficient material on record to establish that there is a nexus of accused with the organised crime syndicate," the judge said.

 

Delhi Police have so far arrested 26 persons, including Sreesanth and two of his Rajasthan Royals teammates – Chavan and Ajit Chandila – in connection with the case. Besides the 19 who were granted bail by the court, six others are now in judicial custody till June 18 while one of the alleged bookies, Ramesh Vyas, is in police custody till June 18. Chandila and six others have not yet applied for

bail. 

 

The police failed to satisfy the court and place on record evidence to justify its decision to slap charges under Mcoca for being involved in 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 the matter and whether these people have nexus with underworld people sitting outside," the judge said. The remarks by the judge came when the police said it would not be in a position to place before it the documents and evidence before June 18 as the probe was in an initial stage.

 

"It will be misuse of provisions of Mcoca, so you will have to give relevant documents. If you have booked them under this law, it means you must be having proper sanction and sufficient evidence against each of them," the court said. During the late evening hearing, additional public prosecutor Rajeev Mohan said Dawood, Shakeel, Javed Churani and Salman were in constant touch with the bookies including Ramesh Vyas.