Gurunath Meiyappan remanded to police custody till May 29

Gurunath Meiyappan, Chennai Super Kings owner and son-in-law of BCCI chief N. Srinivasan, has been remanded in police custody till May 29.

Gurunath, who was arrested by Mumbai police on Friday night for alleged involvement in IPL betting racket, was produced before a Metropolitan Court today, which remanded him in police custody till May 29.

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 alleged IPL betting racket.

In its remand application, the police said that Meiyappan, the ‘Team Principal’ of the Chennai franchise who was arrested last night, used to place “huge bets” on IPL matches and was even divulging the team’s strategy to bookies.

Links with bookies

The remand application said the crime branch intended to investigate Meiyappan’s relationship 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.

Vindoo-Meiyappan relations

The crime branch application said that it also wanted to find out the financial arrangement between Vindoo and Meiyappan.

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

7 days' police remand

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 Meiyappan's arrest as “illegal”, 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 that the remand application was silent about Meiyappan’s involvement in spot-fixing or match-fixing.

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

Meiyappan was arrested on Friday 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 told PTI this morning.

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.

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