Bengaluru: The summer season of races at Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) will go on unhindered for the rest of the season. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday cleared the file renewing the licence for holding races at the Club till August 31.
The races were cancelled for the past two weeks since Karnataka Finance Department, the licencing authority for races at the Club refused to renew the licence for June. The licence needs to be renewed every month. The Finance Department had cited an ongoing probe by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into alleged mismanagement of the Club affairs, including an alleged doping scandal.
The decision comes in the wake of a delegation of BTC management recently meeting Siddaramaiah and petitioning him to ensure the sport is not disrupted while they assured full co-operation with the investigation agency for the probe. Y. Jagannath, chairman, BTC, said that they were happy that the summer races schedule would not be disrupted and reiterated that they would operate with the probe.
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Meanwhile, all the five individuals named as accused in the FIR that High Grounds police registered in April 2017 over the alleged doping of Queen Latifa horse — Nirmal Prasad, CEO, BTC, Pradyumna Singh, chief stipendiary officer, Arjun Sajnani, Vivek Ubhaykar and Neil Darashah — secured anticipatory bail from a local city court. The accused presented themselves before the investigating officer of the case at CID on Wednesday and recorded their statements. They have again been summoned for questioning on Thursday, sources said.