Former cricketer Maninder Singh, who was arrested on Tuesday on the charge of possessing cocaine, was released on bail by a Delhi court on Wednesday.

Judge H T Malik, additional district and sessions court, released the cricketer after asking him to furnish a bail bond of Rs 50,000 and surety of the like amount. Kirti Azad, Delhi and India teammate, stood surety for Singh.

"I want to take him out of court as soon as possible," Azad told rediff.com.

He said once Singh is released from Tihar jail later in the evening, he will sit down with Singh and try to find out the truth about how the tough cricketer had come to such a situation, and also if there was any foul play in the matter.

Singh is expected to be released from jail in a couple of hours.

In the packed court, marred by the advocates' strike in Karkaduma, the judge took a lenient view of the small quantity of drugs seized from Singh's residence in a posh locality in East Delhi by Delhi police during a raid on Tuesday.

The judge called Singh and had a direct interview with the cricketer, in the absence of his advocate F K Ahluwalia, who could not attend court because of the strike, and then asked Delhi police if Singh was required for further investigation. Singh was released after the police replied in negative.

Singh had told police that he was going through a "rough patch" in his personal life and resorted to ----drugs to de-stress himself.

Police claimed that the 41-year-old cricketer-turned- commentator was a "regular cocaine user" and was planning a getaway in Mumbai, where he was to stay at the Wankhede stadium, to unwind.

Singh has also told police that he had consumed cocaine, a high-end drug with a street value of Rs 3,500 a gram, a few times earlier at a farm house near Mahipalpur on the Delhi-Gurgaon road, sources said.

Police said that it had prior information that Singh had asked Saim Siddiqui, a drug peddler who was arrested with him
yesterday by Narcotics Branch sleuths, to arrange the "stuff" for him for his Mumbai escapade. Singh was caught by the police near his Gagan Apartments flat in Defence Enclave Park in Preet Vihar area of East Delhi when he was about to leave for the airport.

While 1.5 grams of cocaine was seized from him, 100 grams of charas was found from Saim. A case under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotrophic Substances Act was registered against them.

Sources said while Singh, a left-arm spinner who played for India in the 1980s before retiring in 1993, was booked for consuming drugs. Saim was charged with drug peddling.

Singh has played in 35 tests getting 88 wickets and 59 one-day internationals taking 66 scalps in the 1980s.

With inputs from PTI