No proposal to legalise betting in cricket — Vajpayee

The remarks of the prime minister came a day after Sports Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa stated that the government might consider making betting on the game legal to minimise the mischief potential of manipulators in the light of recent match-fixing scandal.

Meanwhile, Dhindsa today denied government might consider legalising betting in cricket.

Clarifying his statement appearing in newspapers today, the Minister said: "What I meant was that the meeting of cricket experts I have called on April 27 may discuss the issue (of betting) if someone raised it".

"I had said so when I was asked whether government was considering to legalise betting in cricket like in other countries."

He said further action on the issue of betting would be taken only after the views of parliamentarians and other eminent personalities become known.

Dhindsa said the views emerging in his meeting with past presidents of BCCI and other cricketers on April 27 would also be considered by the government.

In yet another development, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Sunday quizzed a Delhi-based businessman in the sensational match-fixing case and told a court they had got "some vital clues" from him and a diary seized from the residence of Rajesh Kalra whose custodial interrogation would continue for two more days.

"We have got some vital information about many bookies and punters and also about hawala transactions" during questioning of the city-based businessman and from the diary," ED counsel Subhas Bansal told the court while seeking permission to interrogate Kalra for two more days in the custody.

Metropolitan Magistrate V K Khanna extended the custodial remand of Kalra for two more days and also granted permission to ED to question bollywood actor Kishan Kumar, now in judicial custody in Apollo Hospital, for two hours if the hospital authority allowed to do so.

Kalra, the first person to be arrested in the case involving South African cricketer Hansie Cronje and four of his team-mates besides some Indians, however, told the court that he was mentally tortured and forced to sign on certain documents.

"I am innocent. I am not a bookie. They are mentally torturing me and have forced me to sign certain documents," Kalra said adding the officials were threatening him to say according to their dictates.

ED also produced the diary in the court but Kalra vehemently denied saying he had no knowledge about the diary.

ED officials claimed the name of the businessman, who is being interrogated, figured in the diary seized by the agency officials during investigations.

Meanwhile, Kishan Kumar, brother of slain music baron Gulsan Kumar, was today examined by a panel of senior doctors who said "so far no abnormality is reported and we are planning the final investigations for Monday", a bulletin issued by the hospital said.

Further plan of management would depend upon the result of these investigations, the bulletin said.

Kalra, who was arrested on April 8 and had already been interrogated for six consecutive days by Crime Branch police and three days by ED officials, would be produced before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Sangeeta Dhingra Sehgal on Tuesday.

The ACMM would also hear an application filed by the ED seeking examination of Kumar by a panel of doctors from All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences. A Magistrate had earlier directed the Apollo Hospial authorites to furnish a report if Kumar could be shifted to AIIMS on Monday.