Three high-profile cricketers at the center of the "biggest corruption scandal to hit the lucrative Indian Premier League have been cleared of match-fixing charges, further complicating attempts to clean up the tournament," according to Keohane & Crabtree of the FINANCIAL TIMES. The criminal case against the sportsmen "was seen by many analysts as an important means for the IPL to draw a line under a scandal that erupted during its 2013 season." Its collapse "increases the uncertainty surrounding the competition’s next season in 2016." A court in New Delhi on Saturday discharged 36 individuals involved in the scandal, including ex-Indian national cricketer S. Sreesanth and "two of his former teammates in the Rajasthan Royals franchise." The court "dismissed the evidence presented in the case by police and the prosecution as insufficient." Sreesanth and his two teammates "were arrested in a police operation known as Operation U-turn." The three were accused of "spot fixing" -- in which elements of a match are rigged in exchange for money -- "which police claimed was linked to criminal betting syndicates" (FT, 7/26). In Mumbai, Sana Shakil wrote however,
the Board of Control for Cricket in India has said that "the board's action is independent of court
verdict and it will not revoke ban on the trio despite." All
accused present in the courtroom "appeared relieved after the court's
order." Sreesanth "broke down and said he was happy to have finally got
justice." The formal set of charges, running into 6,000 pages, "named Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan, among other accused, in the scandal related to the IPL-6 held in 2013" (TIMES OF INDIA, 7/25). The INDIAN EXPRESS' Kaunain Sheriff wrote "among the 42 individuals chargesheeted by police were fugitive underworld dons" Dawood Ibrahim
and Chhota Shakeel. The court observed that the “best case” could have been
made under the Public Gambling Act, but that too was “not prima facie
established” from the evidence placed on record by the Special Cell. The court observed that the allegedly incriminating conversation between Sreesanth and his
friend Jiju Janardhanan "are innocuous and do not in any manner reveal
the conspiracy of fixing the over." The court said, "The
conversation between Janardhanan and Sreesanth does not show that
Janardhanan had approached Sreesanth for fixing the over or that it was
done as a part of activity of crime syndicate run by Dawood and Chhota Shakeel" (INDIAN EXPRESS, 7/26).
