Former Delhi Commissioner of Police Neeraj Kumar has said that S Sreesanth escaped from the punishment of spot-fixing due to a vacuum of law. Kumar, a celebrated IPS officer who served for 37 years, was in charge of Delhi Police when its Special Cell under his guidance arrested Sreesanth and fellow Rajasthan Royals cricketers Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan on spot-fixing charges.
In 2019, the Supreme Court, despite ruling that there was evidence against Sreesanth, asked BCCI to reconsider the life ban on him. The punishment was reduced to a seven-year suspension that ended in September, 2020.
Jiju Janardhan, another key figure accused of spot-fixing, was reported to be Sreesanth's cousin and an under-22 Gujarat player. In May 2013, Sreesanth confessed to spot-fixing, according to police.
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"The case seemingly didn't go anywhere...unfortunately, there is no law (in India) to deal with corruption in cricket or corruption in sports in general," Kumar said during an exclusive interaction with PTI.
"Even a country like Zimbabwe has specific law. Australia, New Zealand have it...in Europe, there is a law because corruption is there not just in cricket but in football, tennis, golf," Kumar added.
The former Delhi Commissioner of Police was associated with the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal in 2000 as part of the Central Bureau of Investigation's team. Kumar said that the biggest roadblock in prosecuting corruption in sports is the absence of a law.
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"So many things that we do, they do not stand test of judicial scrutiny, for instance. If we say, during match-fixing, people were cheated, now the court will ask, show me one person, who is cheated, produce that person in court," Kumar said.
"Who will come to the court and say I went to a cricket match expecting fair-play and for everybody to play to his or her potential? So, in the absence of a victim, it becomes very difficult to prove a case," Kumar added.
In India, a law to curb the malice has been in the works since 2013. The Prevention of Sporting Fraud Bill (2013), which was tabled in the Lok Sabha in 2018, had a provision for five-year imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10 lakh for those found guilty of sporting fraud.
The bill was drafted by Justice (retd) Mukul Mudgal and was seen as a game-changer to curb match-fixing.
Police reported that Sreesanth was drunk at the time of his arrest and thought he was being arrested for being drunk.
