The 2013

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as Tata Group, TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 cricket, T20 Professional sports league organization, franchise cricket Sports league, league of India. It is annually contested by ...

spot-fixing and betting case arose when the

Delhi Police The Delhi Police (DP) is the law enforcement agency for the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). Delhi Police comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India. In 2015, sanctioned strength of Delhi ...

arrested three

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

ers,

Sreesanth Shanthakumaran Nair Sreesanth (, born 6 February 1983) is an Indian former cricketer and film actor who played all forms of the game. He is a right-arm fast-medium-pace bowler and a right-handed tail-ender batsman. In first class cricket, he p ...

, Ajit Chandila and

Ankeet Chavan Ankeet Chavan (born 28 October 1985) is a cricketer who played for Mumbai in Indian domestic cricket. He is an all-rounder who is a left-handed batsman and slow left-arm orthodox bowler. He also played for Rajasthan Royals in Indian Premier Lea ...

, on the charges of alleged

spot-fixing Spot-fixing is illegal activity in a sport in which a specific aspect of a game, unrelated to the final result but upon which a betting market exists, is fixed in an attempt to ensure a certain result in a proposition bet. Examples include somet ...

. The three represented the

Rajasthan Royals Rajasthan Royals (often abbreviated as RR) are a franchise cricket team based in Jaipur, Rajasthan, that plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Founded in 2008 as one of the initial eight IPL franchises, the team is based at the Sawai ...

in the

2013 Indian Premier League The 2013 season of the Indian Premier League, abbreviated as IPL 6 or Pepsi IPL 2013, was the sixth season of the IPL, established by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2007. The tournament featured nine teams and was held fro ...

. In a separate case,

Mumbai Police The Mumbai Police (Marathi: मुंबई पोलीस, IAST: ''Mumbaī Pulīs'', formerly ''Bombay Police'') is the police department of the city of Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a part of Maharashtra Police and has the primary responsibiliti ...

arrested

Vindu Dara Singh Vindu Dara Singh (born Virender Singh Randhawa; 6 May 1964) is an Indian actor who does Hindi and Punjabi television films. He is the winner of the third season of ''Bigg Boss''. Before this, In 1996 he played the role of Lord Hanuman in '' J ...

, Priyank Sepany (diamond dealer) and

Chennai Super Kings Chennai Super Kings (CSK) is an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise cricket team based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 2008, the team plays its home matches at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The team is owned by India ...

Team Principal

Gurunath Meiyappan Gurunath Meiyappan is a member of the AVM family and is the son-in-law of industrialist, former president of the BCCI, and former chairman of the ICC, N. Srinivasan. He was the "team principal" of the IPL cricket franchise, Chennai Super Ki ...

for alleged betting. In July 2015, the RM Lodha Committee suspended

India Cements The India Cements Limited is a cement manufacturing company based in Chennai. It is the 9th largest listed cement company in India by revenue. The company is headed by former International Cricket Council chairman and Board of Control for Cricket ...

and Jaipur IPL, owners of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals respectively, for two years. Additionally, Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan were cleared of all the charges after they were found not guilty by the Patiala House Courts. However, in January 2016, Chandila was given a life ban from all forms of cricket by the BCCI. In March 2019, the Supreme Court lifted the life ban imposed by BCCI on Sreesanth.

Investigation details

Sreesanth was arrested at his friend's house, whereas Chandila and Chavan were arrested from their team hotel in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

. Rajasthan Royals suspended the contracts of the three players until the investigation was complete. Delhi police have claimed that Chavan has confessed being involved in the spot fixing. The police also claimed that Chandila had tried to get other players, including Chavan, involved in the spot fixing under the direction of the bookies. The

Board of Control for Cricket in India The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the national governing body for cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at Cricket centre, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The BCCI is the richest governing body of cricket in the world ...

(BCCI) suspended the players till further investigation. BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale, said, "The BCCI is shocked and saddened at the recent developments. The BCCI has zero tolerance to corruption. We will offer all cooperation to the Delhi police and all other authorities in their investigations in this matter. The IPL Governing Council has met and decided that the cricketers found involved will be dealt with severely." On 4 June 2013, Delhi Police said that Sreesanth, Chandila, Chavan and 23 other people arrested by them in the spot-fixing scandal were going to be charged with the provisions of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) since they were acting under the command of underworld dons

Dawood Ibrahim Dawood Ibrahim (; born 26 December 1955) is an Indian mafia gangster, drug kingpin, and wanted terrorist from Dongri, Mumbai. He reportedly heads the Indian organised crime syndicate D-Company, which he founded in Mumbai in the 1970s. Ibrahim ...

and

Chhota Shakeel Chhota Shakeel (born 31 December 1955) is an Indian crime boss and a high-ranking leader of the D-Company, a criminal group based in South Asia. He joined the D-Company in 1988 under the kingpin Dawood Ibrahim, and was reportedly responsible f ...

. Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and 17 other people (including 14 alleged bookies) who were arrested by the Delhi Police were released on bail on 10 June 2013 by a Delhi court due to lack of evidence to be charged under MCOCA. Ajit Chandila had not applied for bail. Bombay High Court has sought investigation progress report from Mumbai Crime Branch during the hearing of a public interest litigation filed by social-activist Ketan Tirodkar. Delhi Police chief

Neeraj Kumar Neeraj Kumar is a film maker, actor, writer and director at Neerajfilms and software consultant based in the United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a co ...

said they had been taping phone calls since April 2013. He added, "Further arrests will be of bookies and no more players will be arrested." The

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are List of International Cricket Council members, 108 national associations, with 12 List of Internation ...

withdrew umpire

Asad Rauf Asad Rauf ( Punjabi, ur, ; 12 May 1956 – 14 September 2022) was a Pakistani cricket player and umpire. He was a member of the ICC Elite Umpire Panel from 2006 to 2013. Alleged to have been involved in match-fixing and spot-fixing of cricket ...

from the Champions Trophy in the wake of reports that the Mumbai Police were conducting an investigation into Asad Rauf's activities in the IPL spot fixing scandal.

Arrest of bookies

Sunil Bhatia, a bookie arrested by Delhi Police, said that he was involved in fixing in

Indian Cricket League The Indian Cricket League (ICL) was a private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises that operated between 2007 and 2009 in India. Its two seasons included tournaments between four international teams (World XI, India, Pakista ...

and

Bangladesh Premier League The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) ( bn, বাংলাদেশ প্রিমিয়ার লীগ) is a professional Twenty20 cricket league consisting of seven franchises. The BPL is one of the three professional cricket leagues in ...

besides the IPL leading to speculations that the entire fixing scandal runs even deeper. A team of Delhi Police Special Cell officers arrested Yahya Mohammad in the early hours of 24 May 2013 from the

Rajiv Gandhi International Airport Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) is an international airport that serves Hyderabad, the capital of the Indian state of Telangana. It is located in Shamshabad, about south of Hyderabad and it was opened on 23 March 2008 to replace ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

in connection with the cricket betting. Ahmedabad Crime Branch arrested bookie Vinod Mulchandani from the Satellite Area of Ahmedabad city on 25 May 2013. 12.8 million INR in cash, laptops and mobile phones were seized from his possession.

was arrested for alleged links to bookies in this spot fixing. He was later released on bail on 3 June 2013 by a Mumbai court.

Gurunath Meiyappan case

Call records of

in connection with the betting scandal showed that he was in frequent contact with

(CSK) team principal and BCCI president N. Srinivasan's son-in-law,

. To investigate whether frequent calls to Meiyappan were for betting, Mumbai Police issued summons to him. On 24 May 2013, Gurunath Meiyappan was arrested on charges of betting, conspiracy and cheating after he was questioned by the Mumbai Crime Branch. After his arrest, the CSK franchise immediately disowned him. In a press statement on 24 May 2013,

, which owns the CSK franchisee said: "Mr. Meiyappan is neither the owner, nor the CEO/Team Principal of the Chennai Super Kings. eis only one of the members (Honorary) of the management team of the Chennai Super Kings." The main reason for the immediate disowning of him was that, his arrest could lead to termination of the CSK franchise. This was because of the Clause 11.3 (c) of the Franchise Agreement, which stated On 26 May, BCCI announced that a three-member commission would investigate the role of Meiyappan in the spot-fixing and betting scandal. On 31 May 2013, a senior Mumbai Police official said that Meiyappanan had been found "Not Guilty" . Meiyappan was later released on bail by a Mumbai court, on 3 June 2013.

Raj Kundra case

On 5 June 2013, Rajasthan Royals team co-owner

Raj Kundra Raj Kundra is a British-Indian businessman, who was ranked as the 198th richest British Asian by Success. His father, Bal Krishan Kundra was a middle-class businessman and his mother Usha Rani Kundra was a shop assistant when he was a child. ...

was questioned by the

for alleged involvement in illegal betting. On 6 June 2013, Delhi Police claimed that he had confessed to them of placing bets on his IPL team through a bookie who was his friend. On 7 June 2013, Rajasthan Royals team management said that Raj Kundra would be suspended and all his shares in the team taken back if the charges against him of betting were proved. Because of this, he was suspended from the IPL by the BCCI on 10 June 2013.

Supreme court observation

On 25 March 2014, the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India (IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

told N. Srinivasan to step down from his position on his own as BCCI president in order to ensure a fair investigation into the betting and spot-fixing charges levied against his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan who was team principal of

, else it would pass verdict asking him to step down. The Supreme court said it was "nauseating" that N. Srinivasan continued as BCCI chief.

Mukul Mudgal Committee

In October 2013,

appointed a three-member committee headed by Justice (Retd.)

Mukul Mudgal Justice Mukul Mudgal is a retired Indian judge of Delhi High Court, and remained Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2009 to 2011.Additional Solicitor General of India L Nageswara Rao and senior advocate and former

cricket umpire In cricket, an umpire (from the Old French ''nompere'' meaning not a peer, i.e. not a member of one of the teams, impartial) is a person who has the authority to make decisions about events on the cricket field according to the ''Laws of Cricke ...

Nilay Dutta. The former Indian Cricket Captain

Sourav Ganguly Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (; natively spelled as Gangopadhyay; born 8 July 1972), affectionately known as Dada (meaning ''"elder brother"'' in Bengali), is an Indian cricket administrator, commentator and former national cricket team captain w ...

has also been appointed as a part of the committee and a part of the investigating process of the committee.

Reactions

Initially, Sreesanth's father Shantakumaran Nair termed his son's arrest to be a "larger conspiracy", and blamed cricketers

MS Dhoni Mahendra Singh Dhoni (; born 7 July 1981) is an Indian former international cricketer who was captain of the Indian national cricket team in limited-overs formats from 2007 to 2017 and in Test cricket from 2008 to 2014. He is also the curre ...

and

Harbhajan Singh Harbhajan Singh (born 3 July 1980) is a member of parliament in Rajya Sabha and an Indian retired cricketer and cricket commentator, who played for the Indian national cricket team from 1998 - 2016. Singh was a right-arm spin bowler. In India ...

for connecting his son with the scandal, but later retracted the statement. There were reports that the

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders wi ...

and the

police were in an unfriendly competition between each other and there was a lack of coordination between them. These reports were later dismissed by Maharashtra Home minister R. R. Patil saying that the two teams were co-operating with each other to uncover the truth.

References

External links

IPL Spot-Fixing Coverage on Wisden India
{{Indian Premier League 2013 in Indian cricket Spot-fixing case

Sports betting scandals