Mumbai Police trashes charge of not cooperating
Mumbai, July 29: Mumbai police probing the IPL betting scandal on Monday rejected the charge of not cooperating with the BCCI panel that looked into spot and match fixing allegations in the IPL, saying its investigating officer could not depose before it for want of legal provisions.
The denial comes a day after a two- member panel that probed the allegations against BCCI’s ‘ president in exile’ N. Srinivasan’s son- inlaw Gurunath Meiyappan, India Cements Ltd, which owns IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings, and Jaipur IPL Pvt Ltd, owner of Rajasthan Royals, gave them all a clean chit on account of lack of evidence of wrongdoing.
A senior crime branch officer said that the BCCI panel had on June 28 asked Mumbai police in writing to send its investigating officer to depose before it.
“We sought to know under which procedure we should send our IO for deposition before a private panel,” the officer said speaking on condition of anonymity.
Under the CrPC, an officer investigating in a case is answerable only to the court, he said. The Mumbai Police, in response to the BCCI’s request had on July 5 written a letter to its General manager R. S. Shetty, which read, “Through your letter on June 28, you had requested to depute an officer conversant with the investigation of the case to be present before the probe commission constituted by BCCI.
The crime branch officer said since there was no response from the BCCI to the Mumbai police’s letter, the question of non- cooperation does not arise.