The ball is in the CBI's court

The CBI may find that probing the deal over telecast rights will be far easier than conducting the broad-based, open-ended inquiry into match-fixing, writes MUKUND PADMANABHAN.

IT IS no surprise that the CBI feels it has been sold a lemon. The Union Government's decision to ask the country's premier investigating agency to conduct a broad-based probe into the cricket match-fixing scandal has placed the agency in a difficult spot.

To begin with, the terms of reference - if this is the right expression for a probe which calls on the CBI to conduct an expansive investigation into the whole bribery/match-fixing phenomenon - are decidedly ambiguous. Unlike the Delhi police, which is probing what occurred during a particular cricket series, the CBI's brief is wholly undefined.

In a sense, every international cricket match played over the last few years is under scrutiny. So perhaps is every cricketer who has played during this period - not to mention officials in charge of the game.

Just where does the CBI start? It has begun by studying the Chandrachud report for starters, but a Commission that found no evidence of match-fixing is hardly likely to provide much by way of leads into this very phenomenon.

The former test cricketer, Mr. Manoj Prabhakar, the man who blew the whistle on match-fixing, has indicated he will cooperate with the CBI. So has Mr. I.S. Bindra, former President of the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), who has been particularly voluble and disputatious over the past couple of weeks.

Do these gentlemen know much more than they have already revealed to the press? Perhaps and then again perhaps not. Can they furnish information that could result in the unearthing of hard evidence - the kind that would justify the filing of a chargesheet - about match-fixing. The answer, many would agree, is: probably not.

The CBI has set up a team under a Delhi-based Joint Director, Mr. Sawani, which will use the assistance of its centres in other cities such as Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai to conduct the investigation. Starting off as it does with a virtually blank slate, the probe will be in the nature of a preliminary inquiry.

This poses its own problems. The weight or influence that is derived when an FIR is registered - to arrest or even just to summon people to be examined - would be absent during the preliminary enquiry. To compound matters, the CBI - which is used to tackling public servants - will be treading on unfamiliar ground when dealing with cricketers.

There is also the hardly-talked-about legal aspect of the problem. While everyone would agree there is something extremely morally amiss about cricket match-fixing, the question is: exactly which legal section of the Indian Penal Code is breached by such practice? It is true that the Delhi police registered a case under the IPC against Hansie Cronje and others for criminal conspiracy and cheating.

However, the question is almost certainly going to be asked during legal proceedings: just who has been cheated by match- fixing? Those who placed illegal bets on cricket matches?

The CBI may find that probing the deal over telecast rights - which the Union Sports Minister said would be a part of the investigation - would be far easier than conducting the broad- based, open-ended inquiry into match-fixing. The specificity of the former brief contrasts starkly with the ambiguity over the latter.

While it will be very difficult to establish just which cricketer fixed which match, the CBI is better placed than any other organisation in India to establish just how wide the network operated by the bookmakers spreads. The investigations conducted by the Delhi police firmly suggest that the two accused bookmakers - Rajiv Kalra and Sanjeev Chawla - are only minnows in a game played by some large cold-blooded sharks.

Finally, there is the fear factor. The very fact that an organisation such as the CBI has been appointed to investigate the match- fixing phenomenon is bound to have a deterrent effect. In the near future, it is highly unlikely that bookies will be making open approaches to cricketers or that cricketers will be caught chatting up bookies on cellphones. So the next time India goes out to do battle on the cricket field, rest assured: people are going to be running much too scared to fix the result.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : Cricket: hurt and retired
Next     : Waiting for the rains