PANJIM: The division bench of the High Court of Bombay at Goa, comprising Justice N M Jamdar and Justice Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday directed that an IPS officer be appointed on the panel of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing matka after pointing out that the speed of the investigation, so far, had been slow.
The SIT was constituted over a year ago following High Court directives. Petitioner Kashinath Shetye had suggested that North Goa SP Chandan Chowdhary be appointed to head the investigation.
Shetye, in his petition filed in 2016, alleged rampant illegal gambling (matka) in the form of organised crime. He also alleged a nexus between police, press (which used to publish matka numbers), and politicians for supporting matka gambling.
Crime Branch that had conducted the investigation earlier, in its status report before the high court in 2016, had ruled out the existence of any such possibility.
Shetye had said that raids conducted by Crime Branch were not big and had pressed for an investigation by CBI, after which the SIT was constituted.
