Former Goa Dy. CM Narvekar arrested

Sandesh Prabudesai

Former Goa Deputy Chief Minister and president of the Goa Cricket Association Dayanand Narvekar was finally arrested by the state police on Monday, in connection with the bogus tickets case in the final cricket ODI between Australia and India on April 6 April.

DIG of Police Karnal Singh informed that the apex court dismissed the petition challenging the High Court's conditional anticipatory bail granted to Narvekar last month.

In its order, the Supreme Court stated that the order of the High Court worked itself out, as one month of the anticipatory bail is already over. In view of this the court refused to go into the merits of the case.

Narvekar, who is named as the key person behind the scam, had succeeded in seeking a month's anticipatory bail from the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court on April 26. Though police had challenged the High Court order in the apex court immediately, the matter came up for final hearing on Monday, as the bail period had lapsed.

"We have now arrested him, as we wanted him for custodial interrogation. There is no binding of the court order any more," stated Singh.

The police had earlier arrested Rama Shankardas, the GCA treasurer and Narvekar's close accomplice, ticket contractor Chinmay Fallari as well as three others.

Narvekar had tried his best to avoid arrest. He even got himself admitted to hospital after the sessions court had rejected his anticipatory bail application.

Meanwhile, police are on the look-out for GCA secretary Vinod Phadke.

"He appears to be evading arrest," said SP Davesh Srivastav. "He was neither available at his residence nor at his shop in Mapusa," he added.

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