Narvekar's involvement confirmed

Sandesh Prabhudesai
19 April 2001  

The Goa police has finally come to a definite conclusion that that a coterie of three within the Goa Cricket Association led by its president and former deputy chief minister Dayanand Narvekar conspired with the contractor to sell over 25,000 bogus tickets at the final ODI played between India and Australia on 6 April.

While the application for the anticipatory bail by Narvekar would be heard tomorrow, the police in its 'say' told the Margao district court that the president has managed the whole illegal act, even by getting his brother-in-law Eknath Naik appointed as one of the unauthorised agent.

According to the police, all the committees appointed by the GCA for the ODI including the finance committee were for the name sake. All the major decisions were taken by the core group of three, involving Narvekar, general secretary Vinod Phadke and treasurer Rama Shankardas, who is presently in the police custody.

The investigations carried out for the last 13 days have revealed that it began by manipulating the tender documents in favour of contractor Chinmay Fallari, for which Rs two lakh was paid to the coterie of three, including Narvekar.

Besides printing 27,300 tickets and passes officially, the GCA and the contractor altogether printed over 25,000 more bogus tickets, involving a sum of around Rs one crore. It became a public issue as over 10,000 people had to go back, facing lathis from the police.

The police have now found out that excess tickets were printed in a similar manner even at the India-Sri Lanka ODI played at the same Fatorda stadium in 1997, when the president and the treasurer were the same persons.

In order to mange the whole conspiracy within the coterie, the police state that Narvekar had even changed the GCA constitution, taking all the powers with him including appointment of managing committee members of his choice.

P G Kakodkar, former chairman of the State Bank of India, who has filed a PIL in the court against the GCA functioning and demanding a refund after he was also beaten up by the police, however feels that the police are not given a free hand.

While the greed to become a Tata or a Birla overnight at the cost of the general public is really shameful, he says it is really surprising that the pace of investigations has suddenly slowed down after arresting almost seven people in the first three days.

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