The CBI Report in Full -- Part 10

Statement of Sanjiv Kohli aka Tipu Kohli Sanjiv Kohli

has a chain of restaurants by the name of Moti Mahal in different parts of Delhi. He is a punter and places bets on cricket matches with some of the Delhi bookies, namely, Hans and Deepak and also with Shobhan Mehta of Bombay. He started placing bets on cricket matches in the year 1992 on a small scale and has continued to do so ever since. He knows Manoj Prabhakar from around 1992.
He first met him in South Delhi Club and came to know that he was very close to one Anand Saxena who is a well known bookie. Thereafter, their relationship started and he used to meet him in a number of parties off and on. Sanjiv Kohli further stated that as he was a punter, he thought some advance information about cricket matches would be useful for him.

As his relationship with Manoj grew, he started asking him for information regarding pitch, weather, etc. He was in touch with him when England visited India in 1993 and subsequently in some other series also. As far as he remembers, he had paid Manoj around Rs 1 lakh to provide information in matches in which he played.

On some occasions, he may have given Manoj some gifts etc. for the information he had provided, but does not remember the details. Sanjiv Kohli started feeling that some of the information provided was not correct and therefore stopped having any contacts with him. The last time he met Manoj was when Manoj stood for Parliamentary elections. Manoj had also asked him for some money to finance his election, which he refused.

Kohli stated that he had been close to Rattan Mehta for many years, but around 3-4 years ago, he developed some differences with him during a Sri Lanka-Pakistan match. This was most probably in the year 1997. there was a cricket series in Sri Lanka and Rattan Mehta was also in Sri Lanka. Rattan rang him up one day and infirmed that he had fixed the Pakistan team and asked him for Rs. 25 lakhs to pay to them.

At that point of time, Sanjiv told Rattan that since Sri Lanka were already the favourites there was no point in fixing the Pakistan team, which was anyway expect to lose. Thereafter, Rattan asked him to place bets on his behalf in favour of Sri Lanka winning, but since was Pakistan was playing well in that match, Sanjiv did not do so. Pakistan eventually lost the match, and when Rattan Mehta returned to India, he demanded Rs. 20 lacs from him to pay up the Pakistan players.

Sanjiv, however, told Rattan that he had not made any money on his information so he did not pay Rattan, because of which they had a fight. Thereafter, Tipu's contacts with Rattan Mehta ceased. Sanjiv further stated that he had heard that Rattan was extremely close to the Pakistan team and that he also enjoyed an excellent relationship with Ajay Jadeja.

Statement of Ram Adhar, aka Choudhary Ram Adhar alias Choudhary,

an employee of the DDCA for the past 25-30 years, works as groundsman at Feroze Shah Kotla. Choudhary knows Ajay Sharma very well. In the year 1996, before the India- Australia Test match at Feroze Shah Kotla, Ajay Sharma contacted him 3-4 days prior to the match and told him to meet him on a particular date at Rajghat.

Choudhary went to Rajghat on that particular date and Ajay Sharma was present there along with another person. They made him sit in their car and told him that the pitch for the India-Australia Test should be prepared in such a way that it was result-oriented. Accordingly, he had prepared the pitch and the India-Australia match concluded in just over three and a half days.

Choudhary confessed that Ajay Sharma gave him a sum of Rs. 50,000/- for this. Statement of Deepak Rajouri Deepak Rajouri, another bookie of Delhi stated that he had been a cricket bookie for the past 6 years or so and runs the books along with his younger brother Jyoti Kumar. He knows most of the big bookies in Delhi and Bombay and provided a list of their names. Rajouri denied that he knew any present or past Indian players.

He denied being involved in match fixing. On being asked about other punters/bookies who may be involved in match fixing, he stated that one Rattan Mehta was reportedly involved in match fixing and was also allegedly very close to Ajay Jadeja. From the bookie circles, he came to know that during the India-New Zealand Test at Ahmedabad in 1999, Rattan Mehta had advance information that the match would end in a draw.

He also stated that one Gyan Chand Gupta, his family, and an associate Ajay Gupta of Delhi were also suspected to be in match fixing and perhaps operated through Azharuddin. They place their bets with one Tinku and Babloo who, in turn, place further bets with Deepak. When the bets placed by Tinku and Babloo exceeded normal limits, he was suspicious that the matches in which they were placing bets were fixed and stopped taking bets from them around 4-5 months ago.

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