Kirti Azad, Bishan S Bedi depose before panel on DDCA 'graft'

Three former cricketers, including Kirti Azad and Bishan Singh Bedi, today deposed before a Delhi Assembly-appointed committee, comprising all AAP MLAs, in connection with the alleged "irregularities" in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA).
The nine-member committee, headed by AAP MLA Sourabh Bhardwaj, was set up by the Assembly in June to probe the alleged corruption in the city's cricket and hockey bodies.
The move is being seen as "unprecedented" as it is perhaps for the first time in the country that the proceedings of any probe committee were opened to the media by a state Assembly.
Four meetings of the committee have been held in the past and this was the fifth one during which the proceedings were opened to the media persons.

During his deposition, Azad, whose wife recently joined the Aam Aadmi Party, alleged "financial irregularities" in the DDCA during the tenure of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as the President of the cricket body.
Meanwhile, slamming Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta alleged that the move was only to "defame" the Union Finance Minister.

Kejriwal is fighting a defamation case in a court filed by Jaitley.
While giving his statement before the committee, Azad alleged that despite giving several complaints of alleged corruption in the DDCA to police and CBI, no action has been taken so far. He claimed that the state cricket body has been a "den" of corruption.

The committee has asked Azad to provide all documents which substantiate the corruption allegations in the DDCA to it and appropriate action will be taken.
Apart from Azad and Bedi, former cricketer Surinder Khanna and one Sameer Bahadur also appeared before the committee, which will submit its report by the Sixth Session of the Assembly.
Currently, the Fourth Session of the Assembly is underway.
LoP Gupta, a BJP leader, while hitting out at Chief Minister Kejriwal, claimed that the AAP government was defaming Jaitley through the back door of the Committee on DDCA.
Gupta said BJP will never allow such "unfair and illegal" practices.

"Having failed to subvert defamation case against Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the courts, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has now entered into a conspiracy to defame him through the specially created unconstitutional inquiry committee to probe DDCA affairs by making public the proceedings of the committee," he alleged in the statement.
In December last year, a political war between AAP and BJP had erupted as the Delhi government-appointed committee formed had pointed out alleged "financial irregularities" in the state cricket body.