{"id":249131,"date":"2015-07-31T12:15:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T06:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=249131"},"modified":"2015-07-31T12:15:05","modified_gmt":"2015-07-31T06:45:05","slug":"in-quest-of-the-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/in-quest-of-the-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"In Quest of the Fix"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dark
Dark times<\/strong> Sreesanth was arrested by the Delhi Police in 2013 in the IPL spotfixing case. Photo: Vijay Pandey<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nDelhi Police rode the moral high horse. It sensationalised the allegations. It invoked the sections of a more draconian law, Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA, along with the Indian Penal Code (IPC) because it felt that charges under the Gambling Act will allow the accused to go almostscot free, or with a mere slap on their wrist. In the end, the judge said the evidence was sketchy and full of holes.
\nOne could say the real culprits were the gaps in the evidence collected by the Delhi Police, its deliberate intent to send the defendants to jail for several years, and the inability of Indian laws to deal adequately with illegal betting and matchfixing in sports. For Delhi Police, it\u2019s back to Ground Zero.
\nWay back in 2000, after sensational disclosures by the late Hansie Cronje, once South African skipper, several Indian cricketers \u2014 former captain Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, Manoj Prabhakar and Ajay Sharma \u2014 were banned for life by the bcci. Different high courts revoked the bans on two of them, Azharuddin and Jadeja. It is another matter that neither of them played for the country again; Jadeja did play for Rajasthan in the domestic Ranji Trophy and captained the side as well.
\nTo be fair to Delhi Police, it is in august company. Most global investigators, including the anti-corruption unit of the International Cricket Council (ICC), have invariably found it tough, if not impossible, to get favourable orders in such cases. For it is important to first prove the \u2018fix\u2019, which isn\u2019t easy, establish the link between performance, money and hawala transactions, connect the players and bookies to a global organised crime syndicate and finally, have the necessary laws to book the culprits.
\nWHERE\u00a0IS\u00a0THE\u00a0FIX?<\/strong><\/span>
\nAs the July 2015 sessions court order shows, it is tough to pinpoint the fix. Take the case of Sreesanth, who allegedly spot-fixed an over in the 2013 ipl match between Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab on 9 May 2013. Delhi Police said he agreed to take 60 lakh to bowl an over in which he would concede 14+ runs. An advance of 10 lakh was given to his friend and former cricketer, P Jiju Janardhanan. Sreesanth said he would give a signal to let the bookies know that the fix was on.<\/p>\n

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There was an intercepted conversation where Sreesanth and Janardhanan discussed how to divide the 10 lakh booty \u2013 3 lakh for the latter and 7 lakh for the cricketer. From the advance, the former India\u2019s fast bowler purchased two mobile phones in Jaipur for his two girlfriends, Sakshi Jhala and Deepika. Almost 2 lakh was spent to buy clothes from a Diesel store on the 14th and 15th of May, 2013. A cash amount of 5.5 lakh was recovered from Abhishek Shukla, who had removed the unspent cash after the arrest of his two friends.
\nHowever, the sessions court concluded that there was no fix involved. One, Sreesanth did not concede over 14 runs in that over, only 13. Although the bookies commended him for trying his best, the judge said that \u201cthe detailed analysis of the over in question would show that S Sreesanth had bowled a legal and competent over.\u201d Reason: In the first four balls, he conceded only five runs. In fact, the first and third balls were dot balls, or no run was scored off them. He also did not deliberately bowl a no-ball or a wide to concede extra runs to reach the 14+ mark.
\nWhat turned the police evidence in favour of the cricketer was a phone conversation that Janardhanan had with an alleged bookie, Chandresh Patel. In it, the former clearly said that Sreesanth was cagey about the over as he had been out of the team for a long time and didn\u2019t wish to take the risk. \u201cThis clearly reveals the intention of S Sreesanth,\u201d said the order, because the conversation happened at 12:13 pm on the day of the Royals vs Kings XI match.
\nIn Chandila\u2019s case, the police charged that he took Rs 12 lakh in 2012 from bookies but returned it as \u201che was unable to provide the requisite underperformance to which he had agreed.\u201d He returned the money in three cheques of 4 lakh each to Sunil Bhatia, a member of the syndicate, one of which was debited to Bhatia\u2019s account, two being dishonoured for insufficient funds. In 2013, before IPL\u00a06, Chandila demanded Rs\u00a025 lakh from the bookies. This time he failed to alert the bookies about the fixes with the pre-arranged signal and, therefore, had to return 20 lakh in cash.
\nAs the judge observed, \u201cThe evidence, even if admitted in toto, only shows that Ajit Chandela (Chandila) had agreed to underperform but he did not do so. He is not shown to have cheated anybody since he did not underperform after taking money.\u201d
\nSHOW\u00a0ME\u00a0THE\u00a0MONEY?<\/b><\/span>
\nTo show that a match or an over is fixed, the investigating agencies need to link underperformance of the players, money they received, and the transfer of cash through hawala that involved money laundering. For example, in the case of Sreesanth, the court said that Sreesanth\u2019s ipl contract was worth Rs \u00a01.84 crore and on 3 April 2013, the balance in his HSBC bank account was over 36 lakh. His atm cash withdrawals in April 2013 were over Rs 10 lakh.
\n\u201cIn the given scenario, no presumption could be made that the purchases made by the Sreesanth were from the advance received from the bookies or that such expenses were not made from his legally earned income,\u201d said the court. Similarly, the recovery of \u00a0Rs 5.5 lakh from Shukla \u201cis sham and it is the disclosure statement masquerading as seizure\/recovery memo (by the police). At best, it can be said that 5.5 lakh were recovered from him (Shukla), but that recovery cannot be connected to S Sreesanth on the basis of disclosure statement of Abhishek Shukla.\u201d
\n
\nJudge Krishna rightly observed that sports betting and matchfixing generates huge amounts of black money, which is initially transferred through hawala, and later laundered to transform the dirty money into assets that appear legitimate. Delhi Police tried to prove the use of hawala and moneylaundering through sms between several alleged bookies. However, it failed to link these mobile messages with actual illegal transfers or legal deals to wash the money.
\n\u201cSending of sms without there being corroborative evidence in the nature of bank accounts, money transactions or other manifestations of this money in material form, cannot be considered as sufficient evidence to make out even a prima facie case of hawala being done\u2026 It is significant to note that Sanjay Agarwal @(alias) Chhotu was alleged to be the face for investment for this illegal money, but investigations have not revealed amassing of any property or money in the bank accounts which was not accounted. Likewise the property details of Ashwani Agarwal (alleged bookie) do not reflect any disproportionate investment or wealth,\u201d said the order.
\nDOES\u00a0A\u00a0GLOBAL\u00a0CRIME\u00a0SYNDICATE\u00a0EXIST?<\/b><\/span>
\nThe Delhi Police tried to bring in the accused under the umbrella of organised crime, which was controlled by a global crime syndicate, headed by Dawood Ibrahim, India\u2019s most-wanted and his henchman, Chhota Shakeel. This enabled it to invoke specific clauses of mcoca, along with the ipc. Since the punishment under mcoca is more stringent than the ipc and Gambling Act, the idea was to link match fixing and illegal betting to an organised gang.
\nSadly, this proved to be the undoing of the police case. The fact is that it is almost impossible to prove the existence of a global organised syndicate, unless the investigations are spread out across the globe. To be watertight, the Indian police needed to involve dozens of other nations whose intelligence and police agencies actively cooperate in the investigations. This was obviously not done in this case. All that was alluded to were a few mobile numbers, allegedly used by Dawood and Shakeel, a few conversations, some of them innocuous, and voice recognition of Dawood in one of the conversations.<\/p>\n

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This wasn\u2019t enough for the sessions court. It pointed out that there are no phone transcripts that involved Shakeel or connected him to Dawood. Most of the other accused, including cricketers and bookies, never had any direct or indirect links with either Dawood or Shakeel. The whole chain-of-command structure was based on a single link between the dons and bookies; it was link that had several cracks. Therefore, the whole command matrix fell like a house of cards.
\nWhile it is fashionable and exciting to prove the existence of global organised gangs, there is not enough evidence about them, even internationally. A few academics in mafia theory have argued that organised crime needs to be organised and centralised because of intrinsic reasons. They contend that such organisations \u201cseek to govern and control the whole economic structure of the underworld\u201d. This happens due to the notion of \u201cexclusivity\u201d or monopoly, and a \u201crule-making role\u201d through the \u201corganised use of violence\u201d to impose the monopoly.
\nSome of the other advantages, as mentioned in the book The Economics of Organised Crime include: economies of scale; exploitation of monopolistic prices; internalisation of negative externalities; avoidance of resource dissipation; better management of portfolio of risky activities and easier access to national and international financial markets.
\nBut empirical data suggests that \u201cthere are strong forces which push the criminal organisations away from a high degree of central coordination\u201d, says the authors Gianluca Fiorentini and Sam Peltzman. It adds that the reasons for inherent desire for decentralisation include: direct proportion between risk and size; ill-defined property rights because of the huge size; higher risk of detection because of the number of people involved in the illegal activities and; problems with the financial markets if one deals with huge amounts.
\nLAWS\u00a0WITHIN\u00a0LAWS<\/strong><\/span>
\nA crucial issue in India is that there are no specific laws to deal with illegal betting, gambling and match fixing. The punishment under the Gambling Act are minimal \u2014 imprisonment for a few months. The IPC\u00a0has specific clauses but they lead to charges of lesser crimes. Therefore, the investigating agencies have this urge to book the culprits under the stricter acts like mcoca, money laundering and others. So, several critics have argued that India needs specific laws to deal with sports betting and fixing.
\nThis was clear from the lawyers\u2019 pleas in the 2013 match fixing case. Several of them argued vehemently that \u201cthe engaging in betting in a game of cricket which is a game of skill, is any way not an offence under Section 12 of the Public Gambling Act.\u201d Section 12 of the act, which was promulgated in 1867, states that the act will not apply to certain games \u201cof mere skill wherever played\u201d. A few states like Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab have their own specific amendments to it.
\nHowever, a caveat needs to be mentioned here. Mere acts are not likely to solve the problems. For example, India has the most stringent narcotics laws, compared to other nations, but the crime of illegal drug trafficking hasn\u2019t reduced over the past few years. It is the implementation of the acts, and enhanced evidence-collecting skills among the investigating agencies that are important. An alternative is to amend some of the existing laws to address the issue of fixing and betting in sports.
\nBut before the country gets to that stage, there is a need to clean up the non-transparent and sometimes corrupt sports bodies, which are wracked by political and commercial influences. The controversies that engulfed the BCCI\u00a0over the past years \u2014 which involved Lalit Modi, the former IPL\u00a0head, and N Srinivasan, chairman, ICC\u2014 prove that changes are required.
\nThe Justice Mudgal Committee, which was appointed by the Supreme Court to look into charges of matchfixing in ipl, set the ball rolling through its specific recommendations. Lodha Committee, another one appointed at the behest of the apex court, can complete the process as it was asked to suggest changes in the BCCI\u00a0constitution to make it more transparent and effective. Let\u2019s hope that the Supreme Court jumps out to hit the googlies bowled in the past by the bcci over extra cover.
\neditor@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not easy to prove matchfixing charges in a court of law \u2014 that\u2019s what the 2013 scandal and similar scams have proved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":249137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[9293,9373,9377,9378,3394,517,8557,4331,1470,9363,9379,8703,9380,9242,6475,6476,6478],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}