Sreesanth, Chavan and Chandila guilty in IPL fixing scam, face lengthy bans: reports

Board of Control for Cricket in India Anti-Corruption Unit chief Ravi Sawani's probe into the IPL spot-fixing scandal has found cricketers Ajit Chandila, Ankeet Chavan, Shantakumaran Sreesanth and Amit Singh guilty on multiple counts. The disgraced Rajasthan Royals players face bans ranging from five years to life, it was reported on Friday.

According to the Indian Express, Sawani, who has already informed the players of his verdict three days ago, has recommended that they be banned for a minimum period of five years, going up to life.

BCCI sources said the disciplinary committee is likely to hand a life ban to Chandila and Amit, while Sreesanth and Chavan may be banned for between 10 and 15 years.

Beleaguered BCCI president N Srinivasan, who was forced to step aside due to the Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal, arrived in Delhi on Friday to attend the Board's Disciplinary Committee meeting to deliberate the fate of the cricketers implicated in the scandal.

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Srinivasan is part of the committee, which is headed by Arun Jaitley and also comprises Niranjan Shah. Boith Jaitley and Shah are Board vice-presidents.

The committee will deliberate on Sawani's report on the scam that shamed the sixth edition of the Twenty20 league earlier this year.

Sawani investigated the allegations that the three players conceded a pre-determined number of runs per over in exchange for money during the IPL.

All three of them played for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL and their contracts were terminated by the franchise after the scandal broke. The three players have already arrived for the meeting.

Former IPL and Gujarat player Amit Singh, who last played for the Rajasthan Royals in 2012 and was also arrested with the three others, is likely to be handed a life ban after he was alleged to have discussed fixing IPL matches with Chandila.

Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals players Harmeet Singh and Siddharth Trivedi are also likely to get five-year bans for failing to report approaches by bookies.

After examining Sawani's report, the Disciplinary Committee will present the findings at the BCCI's annual general meeting, on September 29.

Sawani had earlier submitted an interim report, which was put on hold by the BCCI as he had not spoken to Chandila, who was in judicial custody till a few days ago.

Chandila, who was granted bail on August 6 for two days to perform the last rites of his deceased brother, has denied the charges. The other two implicated players have also maintained their innocence after coming out on bail.

Srinivasan, meanwhile, suffered a legal setback on Thursday when the Supreme Court deferred, for two weeks, hearing on petitions relating to controversy over the appointment of the panel to probe the spot-fixing scam, which the BCCI challenged the Bombay high court order holding as illegal its two-member committee.