New Delhi:
Former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar says there is a clear lack of seriousness among stakeholders in framing laws against corruption in Indian sports, which is why people like tainted former pacer S Sreesanth Evidence of spot-fixing in IPL 2013 has still escaped. explain.
Kumar is a well-known IPS officer with 37 years of service. At that time, a special team of the Delhi Police under his guidance arrested Sreesanth and Rajasthan Royals cricketers Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan on charges of targeted counterfeiting. He was in charge of the Delhi Police at that time.
However, in 2019, the Supreme Court asked the BCCI to reconsider its lifetime ban despite ruling that there was evidence against the former India player. The penalty was eventually reduced to a seven-year ban, which ended in September 2020.
“There seems to be no progress in the case… Unfortunately (India) has no laws to deal with corruption in cricket or corruption in sports in general,” Kumar said in an exclusive interaction with PTI reporters at the PTI headquarters.
“Even countries like Zimbabwe have specific laws. Australia, New Zealand have specific laws… In Europe, there are laws because corruption is not just in cricket, it’s in football, tennis, golf,” he said. said a 70-year-old man.
He was also linked to the 2000 Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal as part of a CBI investigation team. Kumar said the biggest obstacle to prosecuting sports corruption is the lack of laws.
“For example, a lot of what we do doesn’t stand up to judicial scrutiny. If we say, in match-fixing, people were deceived, now the courts are going to ask, show me a person who was deceived, show That man in court,” he regretted.
“Who is going to go to court and say I went to a cricket match and wanted fair play and wanted everyone to reach their potential? So without a victim, it becomes very difficult to prove the case,” Ku said. Marr explains the gray areas.
India has been enacting laws to curb malicious behavior since 2013. The Prevention of Sports Fraud Bill (2013), which was tabled in the Lok Sabha in 2018, provides for a jail term of five years and a fine of Rs 10. Those found guilty of sports fraud, including match-fixing, will be fined Rs one lakh.
The bill, authored by Justice Mukul Mudgal, is seen as a game-changing move to curb match-fixing.
The bill seeks to replace the Public Gambling Act, 1867, under which any person indulging in gambling can be fined up to Rs 200 or jailed for three months.
Sreesanth returned to the mainstream and even represented Kerala in the Ranji Trophy before retiring from first-class cricket. He now appears in various Legends leagues and also lends his expert opinion on various broadcast forums.
“…The court commended the police for their work. The judge said the task force had done an outstanding job…painstakingly exposing the scam, but in the absence of the law or a legal vacuum, I cannot hold any of them If a person is guilty, sentence them to death. Those are his words.” Kumar, who wrote a book called Cricket Police about his experience of dealing with corruption in the sport, wants the Delhi High Court to again The case was brought to its logical conclusion.
“…We have challenged the order and it is now in the Delhi High Court but due to COVID-19 not much progress was made initially but now there are hardly any hearings and if the order is overturned you This shouldn’t be surprising, as we already have plenty of other evidence.
“The Kerala High Court gave Sreesanth a suspended sentence but did not say he was innocent.” Kumar also believes that the case against former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin, who was involved in the 2000 scandal, )’s case was “not allowed to complete.”
“…If the Azharuddin case was allowed to reach its logical conclusion, some very high-profile figures would be exposed, but that too is not allowed.
“…there is a lack of seriousness in dealing with corruption in sports, especially cricket. Big names were indeed exposed, they were put in a sealed envelope and it remains sealed in the Supreme Court,” Kumar mentioned said these names. Justice Mudgal’s committee submitted the document to the Supreme Court.
Sports needs anti-corruption laws
Kumar believes the government can win goodwill by passing the anti-corruption bill in Parliament.
“If we had this law in place, things would completely change and people wouldn’t be able to get away with it. It’s a low-hanging fruit… I don’t know why they wouldn’t do it,” he said.
BCCI is indifferent to corruption
Kumar also had the opportunity to serve as BCCI’s anti-corruption unit (ACU) chief for nearly four years, but found the world’s richest board to be insincere in dealing with corruption.
“…They were completely indifferent to the whole corruption issue and did not give me the necessary resources,” he said.
Satisfaction with curb private leagues
The BCCI provided assistance to Kumar only to two people, but he said they were successful in fighting private alliances that breed corruption.
“We did manage to crack down on a lot of cases… the phenomenon of private leagues, where some people got together and held leagues just to indulge in repairs. We managed to stop some of them.” The experience left him “very disillusioned with cricket” “.
“I stopped watching the IPL as I was very disappointed. After working in the BCCI, I am not as enamored with the game as I was before.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
