Sreesanth, Chavan granted bail

In a major setback to Delhi Police, a court on Monday indicted them for slapping the stringent provisions of MCOCA on cricketers S Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and 17 others and granted the accused bail in the IPL spot-fixing case.

‘There is no reason for believing that the accused are guilty under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) at this stage,’ Additional Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Khanna said. The court said there is prima facie ‘no sufficient material’ against the accused to establish their ‘nexus’ with organised crime syndicate.

Besides the two cricketers, the court also granted the relief to 17 other accused, including 14 bookies, on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with one surety of the like amount.

There are allegations of betting by bookies and fixing by players for benefiting the syndicate. ‘This court finds that there is no sufficient material on record to establish that there is a nexus of accused with the organised crime syndicate,’ the judge said.