Spot fixing: Five accused sent to judicial custody

A Delhi court sent five spot fixing scam accused, including two former cricketers, to judicial custody till June 4.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma sent to judicial custody three bookies -- Kiran Dole, Sunil Bhatia and Ramakant Aggarwal -- and two players - Manish Guddewar, a former Ranji player of Vidarbha, and Amit Kumar Singh, a former IPL player associated with the Rajasthan Royals franchise.

The judge also pulled up Delhi Police for misleading and hiding information from the court saying it was trying to seek extension of police custody of two (Dole and Bhatia) of the five accused without giving any reasonable grounds.

The court in its order said: "It becomes very clear that the same (application) has been drafted in a very cryptic manner. Instead of disclosing the facts, it (police) is hiding information from the court. It is not clear what the agency has been doing with the two accused (Dole and Bhatia) for the past five days."

"It appears that by prolonging police custody remand, the investigating agency is trying to shield its own lacunae. The application for police custody remand is dismissed and accused are remanded to judicial custody till June 4."

About Aggarwal and Singh, who were produced two days before expiry of their police custody as their interrogation was complete, the investigating agency told the court their further further custodial interrogation was not needed. It added that Guddewar's custody was also not needed.

Public prosecutor Rajiv Mohan told the court that Dole and Bhatia had started the conspiracy and they have to be confronted with the other arrested accused, after court repeatedly asked the reason for extension of their police custody.

The prosecutor added that it need to unearth the whole conspiracy and police have to arrest other co-accused from various places, including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Nagpur.

Police are yet to decode the name of several others involved in the case and its teams are already stationed at Hyderabad and Mumbai to apprehend others involved in the case, he said.

Guddewar's advocate, who argued that he has been falsely implicated in the case, also moved an application requesting the player should be kept in a separate cell in Tihar as lots of sentiments are attached with the game and if he is kept with hardcore criminals, he can be harmed.

The court dismissed player's plea saying the jail manual does not discriminate between undertrial prisoners and there is nothing special about Guddewar if he is a player.

Guddewar was a Ranji level cricket player and played for Vidarbha team between 2003-05.