Chennai, Nov 2:The Madras High Court has dismissed an appeal filed by retired IPS officer G Sampath Kumar against a single judge order refusing to reject a defamation suit filed by cricketer MS Dhoni against the IPS officer and others.
Dhoni had filed the defamation suit for content made by the respondents in connection with the 2013 IPL betting scandal.
A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and M. Jothiraman had dismissed his previous appeal against the 2021 refusal of a single judge to reject the defamation suit.
The judges asked the appellant’s counsel to file an affidavit withdrawing those remarks and decided to hear the case next on November 4, 2025.
The appellant had told the court that he was serving as Superintendent of Police, ‘Q’ Branch CID (Internal Security) in 2013 when he stumbled into a cricket betting syndicate and unearthed a network of bookies while investigating a fake passport scam.
He claimed his investigating team had interrogated a Chennai-based kingpin who exposed the entire process of match fixing.
The retired IPS officer told the Division Bench he had also deposed before the Justice Mudgal Committee constituted by the Supreme Court regarding the issue. However, he claimed a television journalist subsequently conducted a sting operation on him and recorded the conversation that they both had regarding the cricket betting and telecasted the visuals on February 23, 2014.
High Court sentences IPS officer to 15 days imprisonment Immediately, the appellant was placed under suspension for interacting with the media.
Further, listing out various proceedings that followed after the incident, he said, Mr. Dhoni had filed the defamation suit in 2014 seeking an amount of Rs 100 crore in damages though a case related to the larger issue of cricket betting was still pending before the Supreme Court.
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