ICC officials meet CBI, players may be stripped of Arjuna awards

The investigators of the International Cricket Council (ICC) had discussions relating to the match fixing scandal with the officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in New Delhi on Saturday. A two member team from the ICC, comprising Martin Hawkins and Alan Peacock, arrived at the agency's headquarters and held a meeting with the officials for over two hours. The CBI team was represented by the joint director of the special crime branch RN Sawani, deputy inspector general YP Singh and superintendent of police MA Ganapathy.

At the end of the meeting, the officials from both the sides said the meeting was fruitful. CBI spokesman S M Khan told reporters that the two sides had a good discussion and the visiting team showed keen interest in the findings of the agency. Asked whether the ICC team would meet the CBI officials again, Khan said "if they want, they can come and meet us again." On the issue of the names of some foreign players, Khan said "though the discussion was not specific about any particular player, their greater interest was in foreign players as this area is yet to be probed by anyone."

Earlier, it was expected that the CBI was likely to take about a fortnight to initiate prosecution proceedings against former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin and former Delhi captain Ajay Sharma under the Prevention of Corruption Act and evidence against the two players is being analysed as both are public servants.

"Their assets and properties are being ascertained to see if they are disproportionate to their known sources of income. The process is likely to take about a fortnight and after that we'll decide the date for filing a case," a CBI official source said, according to a news agency.

The country's premier investigative agency also said that it is awaiting the report on the income-tax departments 'Operation Gentlemen' carried out in July. "The findings will help us ascertain the financial status of the two cricketers," the sources said. However, the other three players named in the report may get away as a case cannot be initiated against them for want of cognizable evidence.

Meanwhile, the Government is considering taking back the Arjuna awards given to the players who have been named in the CBI's interim report. Union Sports Minister SS Dhindsa said this in New Delhi on Friday. Talking to reporters after the meeting with the BCCI president AC Muthiah, Dhindsa said "We will consider taking back the Arjuna awards only after the BCCI gives us its detailed response to the role of the players, mentioned in the CBI report on match-fixing, following their internal inquiry." Mohammad Azharuddin in 1986, Manoj Prabhakar in 1993, Ajay Jadeja in 1997 and Nayan Mongia in 1998 have all received the Arjuna awards.

In a related development, the ICC anti-corruption chief Sir Paul Condon arrived in New Delhi on Friday to probe the allegations of match-fixing in the interim report of the CBI where it has named former England captain Alec Stewart. The report mentions a bookie as offering Stewart 5,000 pounds to provide match information.

Muthiah said that "the British detective was already in touch with Indian board officials including BCCI commissioner K Madhavan, who has been entrusted with the task of conducting an internal inquiry following the CBI findings." Muthiah also added that the investigating officers of all the cricket playing countries will meet in London in December 'to study how to uniformly approach and curb such problems (match-fixing)."

In England, the ECB chief Lord MacLaurin clarified the stand on Stewart's continuation in the squad currently touring Pakistan. He chief said that Stewart would have been suspended from England's tour of Pakistan for being named in the CBI report on match-fixing, had he not co-operated with investigations into alleged corruption.

Talking to BBC radio, MacLaurin said "If Stewart had not co-operated with us fully on Wednesday morning when we had a very long conference call with him, my board and I would have suspended him. As soon as we contacted Alec, he made his declarations to us quite clearly and therefore we had no reason at all to ask him to go home." He added "If there is any suspicion against any of our England players and they fail to come and talk to me or any or my colleagues about it, they will be suspended."

In New Zealand, the cricket board said it would set up an independent inquiry to look into the allegations made in the interim report by the CBI. In a statement, New Zealand Cricket chief executive Christopher Doig said "It is important that this inquiry is both wideranging and all-encompassing as well as being seen to be conducted independently of New Zealand Cricket." He added "While the report I've seen so far is incomplete, I have seen the sections which relate to Martin Crowe. Martin had adamantly refuted the unsubstantiated allegations and has agreed to cooperate with New Zealand Cricket to inquire fully into the matter."