A day before World Cup action begins, the Delhi high court (HC) gave a clean chit to influential “bookie” and industrialist Mukesh Gupta, who was named by disgraced former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje in the match-fixing scandal 11 years ago.
Justice Hima Kohli said the criminal proceedings against Gupta under Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (Fera), 1973, did not hold as a special Fera appellate tribunal had dropped all charges against him.
After he was sacked on April 11, 2000, Cronje had claimed before Edwin King Commission, which probed the match-fixing scandal, that Gupta was his link to various Indian players.
Gupta had approached HC and sought quashing of criminal proceedings initiated against him before a lower court in Delhi by the enforcement directorate (ED).
This was after Cronje, while “confessing” his “connection” with bookmakers, told King Commission that during the 1996 Kanpur Test, Mukesh, introduced allegedly by former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin, gave him $30,000 to persuade teammates to lose wickets on the last day and throw away the match India eventually won.
CBI and ED’s probe against Azharuddin and former Indian player Manoj Prabhakar had largely hinged on Gupta’s arrest.
