In a major twist to the spot-fixing scandal, the Special Cell of Delhi Police on Friday fielded Sidharth Trivedi, another Rajasthan Royals player, against S. Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila. Sleuths produced Trivedi as a prosecution witness and recorded his statement before a magistrate at Saket Court here on the day.
Metropolitan magistrate Gaurav Rao recorded the 30-year-old medium pacer’s statement under section 164 of the CrPC, which is admissible as evidence in the court. As the process of recording his statement before the magistrate was completed, Delhi Police listed Trivedi as a prosecution witness and he will testify about the offer made to him by his arrested team-mate Chandila and bookies Deepak and Sunil.
Interestingly, a senior police official said that though Trivedi was not directly involved in any spot-fixing and even rejected many offers, he knew about the fixing scam very well.
“We had two options either to make him an accused or to use him as a prosecution witness against rest of the accused. Following investigations we have decided that his role is minimal and he could be of use as a witness against the accused,” said an official.
Police called Trivedi, a Ranji player from Gujarat, to the office of Special Cell on Thursday for questioning and found that he knew many things about the spot-fixing scam.
“The bookies offered him money but he refused to act according to them during the matches,” the official added.