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Journalism of Courage
A special court for corruption cases here in Chennai acquitted IPS officer G Sampath Kumar and three others off all charges in connection with the 2013 Indian Premier League betting case. While delivering the judgment, Judge J Om Prakash on Friday said the prosecution had failed to prove the charges framed against the officer and three others. The court directed the CB-CID to return the seized money with appropriate interest to the accused.
Sampath Kumar, a 1997 batch IAS officer, was then Superintendent of the ‘Q’ branch (a state intelligence wing on Internal security) police of Tamil Nadu. He got conferred as IPS in 2009 and acted as the whistleblower in the 2013 IPL scandal. His investigation unearthed the betting and spot-fixing scam in which prominent names of team owners and players surfaced.
During the probe in 2014, the CB-CID took over the case from Sampath Kumar claiming that while discharging his duty as a Superintendent, the officer had abused his position and conspired with Mahendra Singh Ranka (one of the accused) to extort an amount of 60 lakh rupees to help bookies escape from the clutches of the law. Sampath Kumar was charged with offences under section 120 (b) criminal conspiracy, 384 (extortion), 420 (cheating) and 506(1) (criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 8, 13(1) (d), 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act.
This move from the CB-CID came after Sampath discharged deposition before the Supreme Court-appointed Mudgal Committee that went into IPL scam. “I have reasons and evidence to infer that the CB-CID is not trying to uncover the masterminds involved in match-fixing. The probe is stalled and being misled on vested interest,” Kumar had told the panel in 2014. He was suspended later that year for violation of service rules.
According to PTI, Kumar had maintained that he had been unnecessarily implicated in the case with an “intention of silencing him from probing the IPL betting scandal”.
In 2018, Kumar’s suspension was revoked once the Tamil Nadu home department inquires disposed charges of corruption against him.
