Chennai: Special court handling cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act has refused to relieve two prime ac-cused in the payment of bribe to an IPS officer, who was investigating the IPL betting scam, from the probe.
The court said the prosecution has enough evidence to conduct the trial against the duo.
According to prosecution, Mahendra Singh Ranka, 52, was running Sri Star Bullion, engaged in financing business in Purasawalkam. Nemichand, 55, was running a pawn broker shop in T Nagar.
The third accused was an advocate and fourth accused G. Sampath Kumar, who served as superintendent of police, in ‘Q’ Branch between July 26, 2011 and July 13, 2013.
Sampath Kumar, who informed the Mudgal Committee probing the match fixing issue, wanted Special Investigation Team to probe BCCI and players linked with Indian Premier League match-fixing and betting scam in 2013.
C.S.S. Pillai, special public prosecutor for crime branch CID, said Ranka came to know Gowtham Chand Nimani, Uttam C.Jain and two other accused, who belonged to the Jain community.
Ranka and others conspired together and criminally intimidated, extorted from four persons accused in the multi-crore IPL betting scam. They extorted Rs 1.35 crore from four bookies including Gowtham Chand Nimani and Uttam C. Jain in the pretext of relieving them from the IPL cricket betting scam case, which has been pending.
Gowtham Chand Nimani and Uttam C. Jain and others acted as bookies and were involved in IPL cricket match gambling and they had 10 punters with them. Ranka demanded a sum of '1.20 crore and of this he paid '60 lakh to Sampath Kumar. Similarly, Uttam paid Rs 1 crore to the accused from and out of the sale proceeds of his property measuring 63 cents at Madhavaram and '20 lakhs from his hand.
In the discharge petition, Ranka and Nemichand submitted that police foisted case against them. As per 17 of PC Act, in a metropolitan area, a case shall be investigated by a police officer, in the rank of Assistant Commissioner. But, in the current case the entire investigation was done by the inspector till April 2014. He registered a case without even conducting a preliminary enquiry in a biased manner. Hence, the duo sought to discharge them from the case.
Dismissing the petitions, special judge S. Kanchana said the material produced by the prosecution establishes prima facie case against the petitioners.
