Sreesanth spent Rs 1.95L on clothes,bought friend BlackBerry,paid in cash: Police

Police said the suspended Rajasthan Royals bowler had been taken to Jaipur on Monday night by investigators from where they recovered one of the cellphones,a Blackberry Z10,from a friend’s house. The friend,however,had no role in the scandal,they added.

Sreesanth,police said,bought jeans and other clothes from a ‘Diesel’ store in Mumbai. “We have recovered these clothes and some documents to prove that he used the money from spot-fixing to make these purchases,” said a senior police officer.

Police also said a former domestic player,Baburao Yadav,who was picked up from an undisclosed location in Delhi,was formally arrested Tuesday. He was questioned about his alleged links with arrested player Ajit Chandila. Yadav had played for the Indian Cricket League in 2007 and 2008 and through it had met Sunil Bhatia,a bookie who was arrested last week.

The Police informed the court that they had added the charge of breach of trust under section 409 of the IPC in the FIR following a complaint by the Rajasthan Royals team owners.

The owners had complained that the three players were “agents” of the team under the contract signed by them and had broken the contract by performing in a manner contrary to their contractual obligation.

“The three persons have indulged in what is commonly becoming known as ‘spot-fixing’,where they for personal motive and financial gain have acted contrary to the interest of the franchise,the league and the sport and have acted in a corrupt and fraudulent manner so as to deliberately underperform in a pre-meditated and pre-conceived fashion…,” the complaint said.

“The players have converted the opportunity given to them by disregarding the team and the sport and utilizing the same for illegal personal benefit. Being representatives of the complainant company,and ambassadors of the franchisee,they are liable to be prosecuted and punished in respect of offence under section 406/409 IPC. The players have caused substantial wrongful loss to the complainant including to its market reputation,” it said.

Additional public prosecutor Rajiv Mohan told the court that the Delhi Police special cell was looking into others involved in the conspiracy and would submit Wednesday a sealed report relating to the investigation into the other names that have come up during the investigation.

The court extended the police custody of 11 of those arrested after the Delhi Police said it needed to make more recoveries and the accused were required to be confronted with each other. The court also sent four arrested bookies to 14 days’ judicial custody as the police said they were no longer required for interrogation.

The demand for further custody was vehemently opposed by lawyers for the accused,who argued that the police had already made all recoveries of tape records and other material and did not require custodial interrogation.

Appearing on behalf of Sreesanth,senior lawyer Rebecca John argued that the police was making “bizarre” arguments and could not justify the imposition of section 409 or the demand for further custody of the pace bowler. “The prosecution has not only failed to explain the relation between the invocation of a fresh section and the demand for further custody,” argued John.

She also alluded to the “turf war” between the Delhi Police and Mumbai Police,arguing that the Mumbai Police had merely announced that they had raided a hotel and recovered things that have been linked with the pace bowler. “The recoveries were not done at my instance,something was taken from a hotel room,is that even valid evidence?” asked John.