Mumbai: Mumbai police yesterday refuted allegations that they did not cooperate with a cricket board committee which probed the IPL spot-fixing and betting scandal.
The police reaction followed a ‘clean chit’ given by the two-member panel to Indian cricket board chief N Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan and Rajasthan Royals’ co-owner Raj Kundra in the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot-fixing and betting scandal.
A crime branch official said that though the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) committee had sent a written communication to Mumbai police dated June 28, but delivered on July 4, to send its investigating officer to depose in the matter, there were legal issues involved.
The police sought to know under what legal provisions could police depose before a private panel since as per the law, police can testify only before a court of law, the official said, requesting anonymity.
Since the IPL-6 scandal was still under investigation, police explained the position in a reply on July 5 to the BCCI panel comprising retired high court judges T J Chouta and R Balasubramaniam. But the latter did not respond, the official said.
“We replied to it promptly the next day. Accordingly, there is no question of ‘non-cooperation’ as alleged in some sections,” the official said.
The police investigating offier was required to go to a Bangalore hotel at the BCCI’s expense and depose before the panel.
Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Himanshu Roy said if the BCCI panel had requested details of the probe, police could have considered sharing them, which would not have hampered investigations.
IANS
