Rajiv Shukla, Jaitley meet Sibal, call for quick anti-fixing law

Indian Premier League Governing Council Chairman Rajiv Shukla and BCCI vice-President Arun Jaitley met Law and Justice Minister Kapil Sibal on Friday, and demanded the enactment of a strong anti-fixing legislation at the earliest.

" Today, Arun Jailtely and me met Kapil Sibal and asked him to come up with strongest possible law to curb fixing," Shukla told reporters after the meeting.

"We want a law to be enacted as quickly as possible because in the absence of a law, these people are taking advantage," he added.

Indian cricket has been thrown into disarray because of the IPL spot-fixing scandal, which led to the arrest of three players, including former Test player S Sreesanth, and several bookies with underworld connections.

The scandal has reached the doorstep of BCCI President N Srinivasan, with Mumbai Police summoning his son-in-law and Chennai Super Kings owner Gurunath Meiyappan for questioning after his name cropped up during the interrogation of betting suspect and Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh.

Meanwhile, Mumbai Police today rejected Meiyappan's plea to give him time till Monday to appear before its crime branch for questioning with regard to his role in betting.

Meiyappan was issued with a summons to appear before the Mumbai crime branch between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. today, as he was not at home to answer questions by a Mumbai police team who went to his Chennai residence on Thursday.

Meiyappan had last evening reportedly faxed a request to give him more time to join the investigation, but Mumbai Police refused to entertain his request.

"If we were going to grant an extension, we would not have personally delivered a summons all the way to Chennai," Mumbai Police said.

On Thursday it was declared that if Meiyappan failed to show up on Friday, he would be declared a fugitive from justice, and an arrest warrant could be issued in his name.

Three Chennai Super Kings players, one of them quite senior, are also reportedly under the scanner of the police and other investigating agencies after Vindoo Dara Singh revealed that he was in touch with them during the ongoing T20 season.

Vindoo Dara Singh was arrested by Mumbai Police on May 21 for betting and his alleged links to bookies, and now he is emerging as a key link in the spot-fixing scandal that has rocked Season 6 of cricket's richest tournament.