NEW DELHI: A trial court has today released all the 36 accused including Sreesanth, Ankeeth Chavan and Ajith Chandila of the IPL betting scandal in 2013, due to the lack of evidence over the allegations against them. All the 36 members were presently out on bail.
The accused were present in the court hall during the judgement. S Sreesanth broke down into tears and said that he was happy to have finally got justice.
The Police have earlier chargesheeted 42 accused, out of which six were absconding. The accused list also includes the Under world don Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Shakeel. The Police alleged that the don was behind the spot-fixings of the IPL.
A Chargesheet has been filed by the Delhi Police in connection with the IPL-6 spot fixing case in 2013 alleging that the accused Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chota Shakeel were the main guys behind the IPL spot-fixing. The formal set of charges, comprising of 6000 pages named Chandila, Sreesanth, Chavan and others as accused in the IPL spot-fixing scandal in 2013.
The accused were chargesheeted for offences of cheating, criminal conspiracy under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and under provisions of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), the Times of India reports.
The prosecution has named the statements of the IPL Franchisee Rajasthan Royals captain, Rahul Dravid and player Harmeet Singh as the witnesses. Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan were arrested in May, 2013 based on their phone conversations and the match videos which were alleged as predetermined signs to the bookies.
This is a major setback to the Delhi Police, who have been investigation into the case since 2 years. It will be interesting to watch the outcome of the Lodha Panel’s secondary report, after the trial court has acquitted all the accused.