Narvekar, Phadke, others get summons to appear on Aug 8
TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Twelve long years after the ticketgate rocked the State on April 6, 2001 during the India-Australia ODI, trial in the sensational fake cricket ticket case against the nine accused, including then Goa Cricket Association Chief Dayanand Narvekar and incumbent GCA president Vinod Phadke, will finally commence from August 8.
Days after the Panjim Bench of the Bombay High Court dismissed the plea filed by Narvekar and others against the lower Court’s Order framing criminal charges against them, the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Margao has now issued summons to all the nine accused to appear before the court on August 8 to stand for trial.
It was nearly half-a-decade ago that then Margao JMFC, Ashley Norohna had ordered framing of charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery against Narvekar and the other eight accused.
But, before the trial could begin, the accused preferred an appeal before the Sessions court, which upheld the JMFC’s order framing charges against all of them.
Narvekar and others, however, preferred an appeal before the Panjim Bench of the Bombay High Court against the Sessions court order. The appeal, however, was pending before the High Court for over two years since the Goan Judges on the Bench declined to hear the case, ostensibly on grounds that they were in one way or the other connected with the matter during their stints in the South Goa courts.
The Margao police had charged Narvekar, Ramshankar Das and Vinod Phadke for allegedly entering into a criminal conspiracy with the ticket contractor, Chinmay Fallari for the sale of tickets by manipulation in the tender for a consideration of Rs 68 lakh.
The police further charged the trio for intentionally placing orders for 29,000 tickets and complimentary passes before Hitech print system, Hyderabad beyond the capacity of the stadium, which was put at 27,300 spectators.
In execution of the criminal conspiracy, the excess tickets numbering 1650 worth Rs 9.37 lakh were allegedly unauthorizedly diverted to accused Eknath Naik, the brother-in-law of Dayanand Narvekar for sale. The Police alleged that Eknath sold the tickets for higher premium to the public and cheated them.
The police further charged the trio with allegedly printing 700 fake complimentary tickets from Classical Computers, Panjim and illegally sold the tickets to public in execution of the criminal conspiracy.
