Days after their initial application was rejected, a metropolitan magistrate court on Friday granted bail to eight bookies who were recently arrested by the police for betting on IPL matches.
Harish Bajaj, S Virudhachalam alias Vedachalam, Pappu alias Praveen Kumar, Sunil Bajanlal, Raja, Deepak Bajaj, Lucky alias Narpath and Prasanth were arrested recently by the CB-CID after the Delhi police blew the lid off the betting scandal by detaining three players of the Rajasthan Royals team.
Cases were registered under various provisions, including for cheating under Section 420 of the IPC. The eight bookies were also kept in police custody for a few days.
A bail application by the accused filed last week was rejected by the court. However, they moved the court with a fresh application again on Friday.
Counsel for the accused, Abudu Kumar Rajaratnam, argued that the application of Section 420 of IPC in the instant case was not correct. Offences made out by the police would only fall under Section 51 of the Madras City Police Act for gain through illegal betting, which is a bailable offence.
Also, the counsel contended that no one had yet complained to the police stating that they had faced losses or were cheated by the conduct of the accused.