IPL scandal: 3 sent to police custody till Thursday

New Delhi: Two businessmen and a bouncer, arrested for their alleged involvement in IPL spot-fixing scandal, were on Wednesday remanded to a day`s police custody by a Delhi court.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma sent businessmen Vinod Sharma and Nitin Jain and bouncer Vikash Chowdhury to police custody till Thursday. The court also remanded arrested bookie Mohd Yahya in judicial custody till June 4 after the Delhi Police said he was no more required for custodial interrogation. Yahya, who was arrested from Hyderabad when he was trying to flee to Dubai, was produced in the court after expiry of five days of police custody. Seeking two days custody of Sharma, Jain and Chowdhury, the police cited six reasons to quiz them but the court rejected four of the agency`s grounds. The court allowed the police to quiz the three accused for a day keeping in mind the "paucity of time" as two of them were arrested on Tuesday evening and one surrendered on Wednesday afternoon so the agency did not get enough time to interrogate them. "... Grounds are not appealing to send them to police custody. However, keeping in mind the paucity of time, I deem it appropriate to grant some more time to the investigating agency for their interrogation." "Thus, the accused are remanded to police custody till May 30," the judge said. Seeking two days custody, public prosecutor Shiv Kumar said accused Bhupinder Singh Nagar, who is already in police custody till Thursday, had introduced these three persons to Rajasthan Royal's player Ajit Chandila. It further said the trio had fixed a deal of Rs 30 lakh with Chandila, out of which Rs eight lakh was already paid to the cricketer. The agency also said the custody of the accused was required to confirm whether Chandila had introduced them to any other player during the IPL-6. Police sought the remand to recover the accused's mobile phones which were used for fixing, to recover the spot and match-fixing amount and to know the place where they had fixed the deal with Chandila. It also said they have to trace the source of money they gave to Chandila. The court, however, was not impressed with prosecution's arguments and said if mobiles of the accused have to be recovered, then the police can recover the same from their residences as their addresses are available with the agency and for this the custody of the accused is not required. The judge, in his order, also said as the investigators are very much aware of the club where these three accused had met Chandila, so they can secure CCTV footage of the said club with which they can be confronted with later on. "Human mind has a tendency to forget but electronic devices never lie," the judge said, adding they cannot deny their presence in the footage if they were actually present there. The prosecution said they have also got the telephonic conversations of the three accused with Chandila and they had also gone to Jaipur to meet him. With the arrest of these three accused, a total of 24 people have been arrested in this case, including Rajasthan Royals players Chandila, S Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan. PTI