IPL Betting Probe: CBI Charge-Sheets 2 ED Officials For Graft
The ED officials have been charged with criminal conspiracy under the IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The CBI has filed charge sheet against former Joint Director of the Enforcement Directorate JP Singh and others in connection with the alleged corruption in the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting probe by the Directorate's Ahmedabad unit.
Besides Singh, a 2000-batch Indian Revenue Service officer of the customs and excise wing, the then Additional Director Sanjay Kumar has also been named in the charge sheet at a special CBI court in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
They have been charged with criminal conspiracy under the IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
CBI sources said the case was registered in 2015 on a complaint from the Directorate.
Singh and Kumar, along with two bookies Bimal Aggarwal and Chandresh Patel, were arrested in February this year and are in judicial custody.
The other accused in the CBI charge sheet include alleged middlemen and bookies Sonu Jalan, J K Arora, Dhruv Kumar Singh, Jayesh Thakkar, Paresh Patel and Surinder Mandi. It is alleged that the ED's Ahmedabad unit was probing the Rs 2,000-crore betting scandal in the IPL, and the Rs 5,000-crore money laundering case against alleged hawala operator Afroz Fatta, in which the suspects allegedly sought favours, said the sources.
The CBI had said huge bribe amount was allegedly taken by these officers as quid pro quo for various acts of omission and commission.
The sources said the ED Director had received multiple complaints from various quarters about the alleged demand for bribe by the senior officials of its Ahmedabad unit.
"It has been alleged that certain officers of the Enforcement Directorate while investigating the cases of money laundering in betting and other such activities have allegedly demanded and accepted huge illegal gratification from the accused and suspect persons in the cases," the CBI had said in a statement after registering the FIR.
It was alleged that Rs 15 crore was handed over as bribe to Singh's father-in-law, SKS Somvanshi, a retired Indian Revenue Service officer of the 1978 batch, by hawala dealers and tax consultants for giving relief and extending favours to suspects in two cases probed by the Enforcement Directorate.