Narvekar, Lele summoned

Sandesh Prabhudesai
13 April 2001  

Goa police has summoned Jaywant Lele, the secretary of the Board of Cricket Control of India, and K P Kajaria, the BCCI observer for the final cricket ODI held here between Australia and India, to interrogate in the case of bogus ticket scam.

While both the BCCI officials would report at the Margao police station on Sunday, Dayanand Narvekar, the Goa Cricket Association president and former deputy chief minister, has been summoned tomorrow, for the first time after the probe began on 7 April.

It may be recalled that K Madhavan, the BCCI commissioner and the former CBI chief, had visited Goa two days ago, assuring full co-operation into the investigations.

"The purpose of summoning the BCCI officials is basically to seek clarifications on certain issues and their help since they are the responsible authority to conduct the international matches in India", said SP (South) I D Shukla.

The police have already arrested six persons, including the ticket contractor as well as GCA treasurer Rama Shankardas, having been found involved in printing and selling over 25,000 bogus tickets to the cricket fans. He was then removed from the treasurer's post.

Though Narvekar claimed yesterday that neither he nor his other office bearers were involved in the nearly Rs one crore bogus ticket scam, the police have already established a criminal nexus between the GCA and the contractor.

While the police were hesitating all these days to summon Narvekar, one of the powerful politicians here, the summons issued to him now indicates that he is likely to be implicated in the case. Shukla confirms that his name figures in most of the statements recorded so far.

According to Shukla, the GCA office bearers were not elected but appointed by Narvekar as most of the powers are vested into the president as per the revised GCA constitution. "Seeking his clarification thus becomes inevitable", said Shukla.

Meanwhile, GCA secretary Vinod Phadke was interrogated throughout the day today while other senior GCA office bearers will be interrogated tomorrow. Shankardas, who was admitted to the hospital, is being referred back to the police custody while Eknath Naik, Narvekar's brother-in-law and the unauthorised ticket agent, is still in the hospital after he was arrested.

As the police teams are also reaching here tomorrow with the official Hyderabad-based printer and the Tamil Nadu printer who printed bogus tickets, they will also be interrogated on Sunday.

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