MS Dhoni’s Contempt Petition: Police Officer Sentenced To 15 Days In Jail

Chennai: Indian Police Service (IPS) officer G Sampath Kumar was on Friday sentenced to 15 days of imprisonment by Madras High Court for contempt of court.

The contempt petition was filed by former Team India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who accused the police officer of making derogatory remarks against the Supreme Court and Madras High Court.

A bench of justices SS Sundar and Sunder Mohan suspended the jail sentence for 30 days to enable Sampath to appeal against the verdict.

Dhoni, the captain of Chennai Super Kings, had in 2014 initially filed a Rs 100-crore defamation suit against Sampath — who was then serving with Tamil Nadu Police’s CID department — and a television channel for levelling match-fixing allegations against him in the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting case which had rocked Indian cricket and led to two-year suspensions of CSK and Rajasthan Royals.

Dhoni, who enjoys immense popularity in the southern metropolis even at the age of 42, later filed a contempt plea against the police officer, citing disparaging remarks made by Sampath against the top court and high court.

Sampath, who retired in May this year at the age of 60, had carried out the initial investigation in the 2013 IPL betting case. However, he was later taken off the case and suspended after allegations surfaced of his taking bribes from some bookies to let them off the hook.

Sampath was cleared of the charge by a trial court in 2019 due to inadequate evidence.