​Juhu ‘rave’ party case: Cricketer seeks discharge

MUMBAI: Cricketer Rahul Sharma has moved a special court in the city for discharge from prosecution in a drug consumption case following a “rave party” raid in May last year at Hotel Oakwood in Juhu.
Sharma, who is from Jalandhar and played for Pune Warriors, was one of two players from the fifth IPL season who were among almost 100 people arrested in the police raid and sent for blood tests.
His lawyer Taraq Sayyed filed the discharge plea on Saturday on the grounds that mandatory provisions regarding search and sample collection were violated by the police. The court set August 5 as the next date for hearing.
It is the first such plea filed in the case, which also has South African cricketer Wayne Parnell as an accused.
Sharma’s application states that the chargesheet is silent about his being informed about his right to be searched in the presence of a gazetted officer or a magistrate at the time when the alleged samples were taken.
Section 50 says that if a person wants he can be taken to a magistrate or gazetted officer for his search. Sharma’s plea is that that Bombay high court has held that taking blood samples is also a personal search.
Sharma had tested positive for cannabis. His stand is that the sample sent to the lab was “tampered’’ and he denied that he had ever consumed drugs or smoked.
1 more absconding bookie arrested
The property cell of the Mumbai crime branch on Monday nabbed yet another absconding bookie, Rakeshchand Ratanchand Gangwal from Jaipur, taking the number of arrested in the IPL betting scandal to 19.
Acting on a specific tip-off, the crime branch team arrested Rakeshchand from Jaipur. He will be produced before the court on Tuesday. Rakeshchand is a key accused in the case. He used to operate illegal telephone lines provided by the main bookie Ramesh Vyas.