Meiyappan in police custody; accused of colluding with bookies

Gurunath Meiyappan, Chennai Super Kings owner and son-in-law of the BCCI chief, used to place "huge bets" on IPL matches and was even divulging team's strategy to bookies, Mumbai police on Saturday claimed before a court which remanded him in police custody till May 29.

-'Meiyappan evasive, non-cooperative during interrogation'

Metropolitan Magistrate M P Paaghe handed over Meiyappan's custody to the crime branch after it said his further custodial interrogation was needed to unravel the the alleged IPL betting racket.

In its remand application, the police said Meiyappan, the former Team Principal of the Chennai franchise who was arrested on Friday night, used to place "huge bets" on IPL matches and was even divulging team's strategy to bookies.

The remand application said the crime branch intended to investigate Meiyappan's relation with controversial Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf, who was allegedly in touch with bookies.

One of the bookies was alleged to have left a 'parcel' with actor Vindoo Randhawa, also arrested in the case, to be handed over to Rauf, who by that time had left India. Vindoo had allegedly facilitated the escape of the bookie to Dubai.

The crime branch application said it also wanted to find out the financial arrangement between Vindoo and Meiyappan, who is son-in-law of BCCI chief N Srinivisan.

The two, it said, exchanged phone calls when IPL matches were underway.

"Guru made calls to Vindoo when matches were underway. Vindoo then called bookies with information," it said.

Also, police said that they needed to seize four mobile phones used by Meiyappan from Chennai.

Citing these reasons, public prosecutor Wajid Shaikh sought seven days' police remand of the 35-year-old CSK honcho.

Opposing the prosecution's prayer, defence counsel Abad Ponda described as "illegal" Meiyappan's arrest, saying if a person appears before the police pursuant to summons, he cannot be arrested.

"Moreover, there is no wrongful gain and nobody was cheated. In fact, Gurunath Meiyappan lost money," he said.

He also said the remand application was silent about Meiyappan's involvement in spot-fixing or match-fixing.

However, the magisterial court granted Mumbai crime branch Meiyappan's remand till May 29 for further questioning.

Meiyappan was arrested at midnight by the crime branch after intense grilling for several hours that continued till early this morning.

Police officials said he was "evasive" and "non-cooperative" during questioning.

"He was not as cooperative as we expected him to be. He was evasive about several questions," police officials said.

The crime branch is probing the betting scandal following a nation-wide crackdown on bookies in the wake of arrest of three Rajasthan Royals players including India pacer S Sreesanth for alleged spot-fixing in IPL matches.