Raipur: Saurabh Chandrakar landed in the Chhattisgarh capital on Tuesday evening, four days after a CBI team brought him to India from Muscat, and roughly four months after Oman's Royal Police picked him up.
The CBI, which is investigating the alleged Mahadev online betting network pegged at around Rs 6,000 crore, will produce him before the special CBI court in Raipur on Wednesday. A Delhi court on Monday granted the agency two days of transit remand, with Principal District and Sessions Judge Nikhil Chopra directing that Chandrakar be produced in Raipur by November 4.
His counsel has opened a second front. In Delhi, the defence argued that Oman approved the extradition in connection with the Enforcement Directorate's money-laundering case and not the CBI's cases, and that seeking his custody for offences outside that approval would breach the conditions of extradition.
The CBI countered that a special court in Raipur has already issued an open-ended non-bailable warrant against him and that the ED and CBI matters are interlinked. The agency submitted that the Delhi court only had to decide transit custody, while questions about the scope of the extradition could be examined in Raipur.
Chandrakar had been on the run as the probe widened. Investigators say he had been living in Dubai since 2023 and was the subject of an Interpol Red Corner Notice. They allege he used forged identity documents, including an Indonesian passport in the name Ajanta Mendis, to stay ahead of the agencies before moving to Oman. Oman's Royal Police arrested him on July 8, 2026.
The Chhattisgarh government has transferred 13 FIRs linked to the app to the CBI, and charge sheets have been filed in two of them. The ED is running a parallel money-laundering investigation and has filed a prosecution complaint against him.
Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai welcomed the arrest and said it could lead to major disclosures about the alleged flow of protection money. The CBI's FIR names 21 people, including government officials and policemen, and both agencies have alleged that payments were made to public servants to keep the operation running.
For now, the immediate question before the Raipur court is custody. What the agencies get to ask him, and under which case, will follow.