IPL betting/Hawal probe bribing case:CBI files charge-sheet against 4 including former ED official

Ahmedabad: The CBI today filed charge-sheet against former Joint Director of Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Ahmedabad J P Singh and three others, in the sensational IPL betting and Hawala case probe related bribing case.

The charge-sheet against Singh, his then subordinate Sanjay Kumar and two others identified as Vimal Aggarwal and Chandresh Patel, who were arrested by the CBI on February 21 in connection with the case pertaining to collecting huge amount of money (in crores) from the accused in Surat hawala case and IPL cricket betting racket which was busted two years ago, was filed in a special court here.

The special court had rejected their bail pleas on March 6 and Singh had taken back his bail application in Gujarat High court two days ago after the court warned him to reject it.

Singh had allegedly collected bribes of crores of rupees through his conduits in PMLA case against Surat hawala racket led by Afroz Fatta and the IPL betting case which he was investigating.

Earlier, the allegations were leveled by various accused who were being probed by Singh of bribery and harassment. Before CBI lodged the FIR, Intelligence Bureau (IB) had also made a report in the issue. A document produced by CBI in the special court in Ahmedabad cited IB report which alleged that “Singh took money for not arresting certain accused.

Singh is a 2000-batch Indian Revenue Service officer of the Customs and Excise wing had moved to his parent cadre as Commissioner, Customs and Excise wing before his arrest in the case.

The ED’s Ahmedabad unit was probing the Rs 2,000-crore IPL betting scandal, and the Rs 5,000-crore money laundering case against alleged hawala operator Afroz Fatta.

DeshGujarat