Commission to probe ticket scam ?

Sandesh Prabhudesai
16 April 2001  

Goa government is planning to appoint an inquiry commission to probe into the bogus ticket scandal at the final cricket ODI played between Australia and India in Goa, while police investigations have neared completion.

"The police can investigate only the criminal angle, but the inquiry will also go into the civil angle of it", says chief minister Manohar Parrikar. He is shortly planning to sit with the police, the legal experts and the advocate general to take a decision.

After investigating into the scam for the last 10 days, the police have established a criminal conspiracy between the Goa Cricket Association and the ticket contractor in printing and selling around 25,000 extra bogus tickets worth around Rs one crore, though the stadium capacity was only 27,300.

Pending final decision, Parrikar says the inquiry may also deal with the whole functioning of the GCA. "There are methods to inquire into the functioning of the autonomous bodies like the GCA if they take public on a ride", he said.

Six persons are already arrested including GCA treasurer Rama Shankardas (now removed), ticket contractor Chinmay Fallari and Eknath Naik, brother-in-law of GCA president and former deputy chief minister Dayanand Narvekar, who was unauthorisedly selling bogus tickets.

After serving three summons orders consecutively while he was in Mumbai with his hospitalised mother, Narvekar today appeared at the Margao police station for interrogation. Though none of the authorities state confidently whether he would also be arrested as the accused in the ticket scam, police admit that Narvekar's name figures in most of the 150 statements recorded so far.

The police have arrived at a conclusion that more than one GCA officials are involved in the racket. Besides printing and selling bogus tickets and the conspiracy angle, they are also planning to charge the GCA under section 336 of CrPC, which deals with an act endangering life of persons.

Going beyond the permitted load-bearing factor of 27,300, it has now come to light that around 52,000 tickets were sold (including legal sale of 3160 extra tickets). The risk of stampede or collapsing of the stadium however could be avoided with police resorting to canecharge to disperse the crowd gathered outside the stadium.

Meanwhile, the officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India including the match observer K P Kajaria did not turn up for interrogation even today. They had pleaded for time as the whole BCCI was busy with a crucial meeting in Simla.

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