Further delay in match-fixing report

Onkar Singh  in Delhi

The Central Bureau of Investigation report on its probe into match-fixing allegations may be further delayed as Sports Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa has left for the United States to attend a meeting on mines and will be away till October 13. This was disclosed by top officials of the CBI.

Dhindsa holds the dual charge of Ministry of Sports and Ministry of Mines.

"The minister was busy earlier with the election of his son, who successfully contested the Punjab assembly seat. Now he has gone to Las Vegas to attend a conference on mines and will be away till October 13. So far the CBI has not sought any appointment with the minister to hand over the report," an official of the Sports Ministry said.

Earlier, Sports Ministry officials had told rediff.com that the report would be handed over to the government in the first week of October.

However, CBI joint director R N Sawani said the report is ready and can be presented to the government any time.

"How does it matter whether the minister is in the country or not. We can hand over the report to either the secretary or joint secretary in the Ministry of Sports. The report is ready, but we are in the process of seeking legal opinion on our investigations. Once that is done, it would be left to the discretion of the director of the CBI to decide when to hand over the report to the government. We can do this even at a short notice," he said.

Sawani denied a report in a national daily which said the agency is no position to prosecute any of the players or bookies involved in match-fixing. "I can tell you that this is the wildest guess. More so when it mentions that our report consists of 300 pages," he said.

The match-fixing case was handed over to the CBI in the first week of May this year after Manoj Prabhakar said he was offered Rs 2.5 million by former India allrounder Kapil Dev to under perform in a Singer Cup match against Pakistan in 1994. More than 200 people including Kapil Dev, former India captain Mohammad Azahruddin, Ajay Jadeja, Navjot Sidhu, Ajit Wadekar, Ravi Shastri, Nayan Mongia, Nikhil Chopra, some officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and bookies appeared before the investigating agency.

Mail Cricket Editor