Delhi Police set to take case to HC

Delhi Police have begun the process of challenging the trial court's order which has acquitted all the accused in the IPL spot-fixing case. In the coming week, sources say, they will take sanction from the government and will be filing their appeal in the High Court.

TOI has learnt that the special cell will place on record the portion of the evidence which were, according to them, glaring pieces of evidence but were not appreciated by the court.These include crucial intercepts of phone conversations between S Sreesanth and his confidante, Jijju Janardhanan and Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan. The Rs 20 lakh recovered from Chandila's house and the text messages exchanged by the accused during hawala transactions are also among key evidence, cops say .

The police will contend the court's observation that none of the accused in the case was chargesheeted twice in the last ten years -a must for invoking MCOCA, sources said. They will file fresh papers in two cases -FIR no. 202003 lodged in Mumbai against Chhota Shakeel and FIR no.322009 of Delhi in which Shakeel has been chargesheeted.

In the former case, the court has kept in view the date when MCOCA was invoked and not when the cognizance was taken. There is a gap of around 1-2 months which takes the accused out of the ambit of ten-year period, police have claimed. The cops will also present conversations in which the cricketers discuss signs like showing off a white Diesel watch, touching their locket in the particular over in which runs will be given and tucking a towel in the trouser. A cricketer also talks about giving 14 runs in an over with a bookie.

In one of the conversations, Sreesanth apparently tells Jijju to buy three phones and they both go on to discuss how they can take out Rs 3 lakh from the Rs 10 lakh they have in cash. Sreesanth tells Jijoo to take out one lakh and buy three phones for him.

Jijju insists Sreesanth should not spend the cash first. He says, "teen chahiye... ok main dekhta hu ki unse kitna milta he...baaki laga dega.. paisa kyu kharch karna hai. (Need three... Okay, I'll see how many we can get... The rest will be deposited soon... Why do you have to spend money?)"