Case against Prabhakar for defrauding public money

After a few days of lull, the match fixing scandal once again hogged the headlines on Saturday. And not surprisingly it was Manoj Prabhakar who was at the `centre of the action.'

Prabhakar who acted as a super sleuth to 'expose' the involvement of players and administrators in the match-fixing and cleanse the system is alleged to be involved in a fraud. Evidence collected by the Nainital District Police shows that Prabhakar has defrauded public money to a tune of Rs. 50 crores through fake chit fund schemes.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Akhilesh Mehrotra who is in charge of the case said "Evidence collected by the Nainital District police shows that Prabhakar was involved in a fraud of public money to the tune of Rs 50 crore, invested in his fake chit fund scheme by investors." Mehrotra added "four cases of fraud have been registered till now against Prabhakar, who indulged in a massive public campaign, including addressing several public meetings, in 1994 in a bid to convince people to invest their money into the Apes India group of companies of which he was one of the directors.

Prabhakar then opened several branches of the said company with names like Apes India Leasing and Finance Ltd, Apes Saving and Mutual Benefit India, Apes Housing Finance and Construction Ltd. Mehrotra said that the company allegedly floated by the former cricketer had almost 360 branches in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

As a director of the company, Prabhakar is said to have signed the FDs, bonds and the passbooks given to the investors besides the service book given to the company`s employees. Further, he also publicised that former UP Chief Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari was one of the patrons of the company which Tiwari has denied. On investigation it was found that none of the companies existed in these places and even the headquarters at Lucknow has been closed down. The company`s main office at Lucknow and its offices at Haldwani have since been sealed by the police.

Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax (IT) authorities are slowly but steadily moving ahead in their investigation into the match-fixing scandal. The IT department has got into the act swiftly in cities like Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Baroda apart from other places. According to IT sources, the CBI has also approached the IT department asking it to furnish the details of income and assets of bookies, players and officials allegedly involved in the controversy.

The department has been very active having started making assessments of income and preparing synopsis of returns filed by the cricketers and officials whose names have surfaced during the course of the investigations in match-fixing. An Indian newspaper quotes a CBI official as saying that the CBI and the IT department are considering freezing bank accounts of cricketers and members of their families suspected to be involved in match-fixing.

The premier investigative agency in the country has decided to seek the help of Enforcement Directorate (ED) to investigate hawala transactions, if any, involved in the scandal. Efforts are on to contact a Delhi player, who is currently abroad, by the investigative authorities. The name of the player surfaced during the course of investigations conducted at Mumbai by the agency.

Talking to an Indian newspaper, a CBI official was of the opinion that Manoj Prabhakar's videotapes would 'give a new turn' to the probe. He said "CBI will try its best to corroborate its contents during examinations of suspected players."

Meanwhile, the BCCI secretary Jaywant Lele said in an interview to an Indian newspaper on Friday that the board's formal reply to Prabhakar's tapes have been put on hold. The tapes, which have secretly recorded interviews with players, administrators and others has been put on the hold till BCCI president AC Muthiah returns from abroad. Lele in the interview said "Legal opinion has been sought but, the course of action will only be clear once the president returns."

When asked about the players' names mentioned in the tapes, Lele stood by his earlier stand that the tapes were doctored. Lele said "I didn't implicate either Kapil Dev, Mohammed Azharuddin or Ajay Jadeja (in match-fixing). The names were taken by Prabhakar himself. I only said I, too, could take names if I wasn't bothered about producing evidence."

Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs Syed Shahnawaz Hussain on Friday asked the players and officials to cooperate with CBI to enable it to unearth the truth behind match fixing and betting. He said no time frame has been fixed for the CBI to complete the investigations.