Madras HC convicts ex-IPS officer in Dhoni's contempt plea

The Madras high court on Friday sentenced retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer G Sampath Kumar to 15 days imprisonment on a contempt petition filed by former captain of the Indian cricket team Mahendra Singh Dhoni but kept the sentence in abeyance for 30 days to enable the officer to appeal against the verdict.

A bench of justices SS Sundar and Sunder Mohan, who sentenced the officer, also suspended the jail sentence for 30 days to enable Sampath Kumar to appeal against the verdict.Dhoni, the captain of the Chennai Super Kings, initially filed a ₹100 crore defamation suit against Sampath Kumar, who was serving with the CID department of Tamil Nadu Police, and a television channel in 2014 for levelling match-fixing allegations against him in the Indian Premier League betting case.The cricketer later filed a contempt petition against the officer - he turned 60 this May and retired - and cited disparaging remarks made by the IPS officer against the Supreme Court and the Madras high court.To be sure, Sampath Kumar had carried out the initial probe in the 2013 IPL betting case. He was later taken off the case and suspended following allegations that he took bribes from some bookies to let them off the hook. The police officer, who was cleared of the accusation by a trial court in 2019 citing inadequate evidence, has maintained that he was framed to stop him from unearthing the scam in its entirety.