Meiyappan, Vindu get bail

Delhi Cops Slap MCOCA On 23 Arrested Persons

S Ahmed Ali TNN

Mumbai: The Delhi police, on Tuesday, slapped sections of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA) on the 23 people arrested in the IPL betting scandal. The key accused in the Mumbai crime branch’s own probe into the case — Chennai Super Kings’ principal Gurunath Meiyappan and actor Vindu Dara Singh — walked out on bail with stringent conditions.
    The 19th Metropolitan court here granted bail to eight accused arrested by the crime branch, including bookies Ramesh Vyas, Ashok Vyas, Pandurang Kadam, Neeraj Shah, Alpesh Patel and Prem Taneja, on bonds of Rs 25,000 each.
    It also set stringent conditions for the bail, ordering the accused to report to the crime branch office every alternate day, not to leave the country without permission and not to hamper the investigations.
    Meiyappan’s lawyer Aabad Ponda argued before the court that his client was not involved in match-fixing or spot-fixing and should be granted bail as the police had already exhausted the custody period. “The one case is that of placing bets with Vindu. Placing bets is a bailable offence,” Ponda said. He pointed out that the sections levelled against Meiyappan were bailable, and since his client had not forged documents, the non-bailable IPC sections 466 and 468 were not applicable. Ponda quoted a Supreme Court judgment to contend that in a case that cannot fetch life imprisonment, the accused should be granted bail. “Meiyappan responded to the summons issued to him by the police. There is no question of him absconding. Tapping of (his) phones and all other evidence has been taken by the police even prior to Meiyappan’s arrest,” Ponda said.
    Meiyappan, Vindu and the other accused walked out of Arthur Road jail late evening after completing the formalities. While Vindu headed straight to his Juhu home, Meiyappan went to a city hotel and was expected to fly to his Chennai home after some rest.
    Both have to report to the crime branch office on Thursday. Meiyappan’s lawyers are expected to move an application before the court next week asking for their client to be allowed to appear once a week before the police. Meiyappan was arrested on the night of May 24 by the Mumbai crime branch after he was summoned for questioning.
    One of the bookies granted bail on Tuesday faces arrest by the Delhi police. The Delhi police brought a production warrant for Ramesh Vyas, who is a key accused in their investigations as he allegedly had illegally provided conference call facilities between Delhi bookies and Pakistan bookies.
    Vyas may be arrested on Wednesday by the Delhi police.
    Earlier in the day, the Delhi police invoked MCOCA on the accused in its investigations, saying they had facilitated the illegal acts of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel. But Mumbai crime branch additional commissioner of police Niket Kaushik ruled out applying MCOCA on the accused arrested by the city police. “As of now, we have not come across any evidence in our case to apply the act of MCOCA,’’ a Mumbai police officer said.
Victor link: More trouble for Guru Chennai: BCCI president N Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan may have got out on bail in Mumbai, but more trouble awaits him in Chennai, as Tamil Nadu CB-CID officers prepare to question hotelier Vikram Agrawal alias Victor, who they hope will corroborate evidence linking him with Meiyappan. The Chennai sleuths are armed with call records that show the two exchanged calls more than 80 times during the IPL-6 season. So far, investigations have revealed a network of bookies and punters headed by Uttamlal Jain alias Kitty, who allegedly operated from Victor’s five-star hotel in Egmore. CB-CID officers believe that by establishing Victor’s link with Gurunath through statements and more material evidence, the investigation will go nationwide. TNN

For steps to download Free Alive app, see P 22