Narvekar remanded to police custody

Sandesh Prabhudesai
5 June 2001  

Dayanand Narvekar, former deputy chief minister, was today remanded to police custody for one day.

He was arrested yesterday afternoon in connection with a bogus ticket scam of the cricket ODI played between India and Australia on 6 April. Narvekar is the president of the Goa Cricket Association, who had organised the match in Goa.

While remanding him to police custody, the Margao JMFC rejected Narvekar's plea to grant him bail. The police have accused him as the mastermind behind the scam of overprinting bogus tickets worth Rs one crore.

Presently, however, Narvekar has been hospitalised in a district hospital in Margao after he complained of a severe chest pain last night.

The court agreed to remand him as the Margao police pressed for custodial interrogation. He will be produced in the court tomorrow once again.

Narvekar, the sitting MLA, was arrested after the Supreme Court disposed of the petition filed by the state police, challenging the order of one-month interim bail granted by the high court on 26 April.

Meanwhile, GCA secretary Vinod Phadke is still evading the arrest. The interim bail was granted to both of them earlier.

The state police have altogether arrested nine persons till date including GCA treasurer Rama Shankardas, Narvekar's close accomplice, and ticket contractor Chinmay Fallari. All of them however have been released.

Besides establishing a well-planned conspiracy in overprinting of bogus tickets, the police investigations have also found out that the GCA had deliberately not used the bar code checking machines as well as the UV lights, besides opening the gates late.

According to police, the GCA coterie led by Narvekar had also not allowed the finance committee as well as the security committee to function, contributing to the chaos that had been created on the day of the match.

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