Fairplay's 'Foul Play': Maharashtra Cyber Cell Quizzes Badshah for Promoting Betting App That Aired IPL

Popular rapper Badshah appeared before the Maharashtra state cyber cell on Monday in response to summons in a case related to the illegal screening of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament on a betting app he promoted. The case of digital piracy is linked to the app Fairplay.

It has been alleged that the app was airing IPL games, even though it did not have any permission or broadcast rights.

Viacom18 had the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to stream the IPL 2023 matches. But Fairplay was parallelly screening the cricket tournament from March 2023 to May 2023. Viacom18 filed a complaint with the Maharashtra cyber cell over digital copyright.

Sources within the cyber cell confirmed that Badshah was summoned for questioning as he promoted Fairplay.

Officials said that around 40 Bollywood actors could be summoned in connection with the case.

Badshah’s alleged connection with Fairplay has emerged just a week after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed its first charge sheet for its money laundering investigation into the Mahadev betting app case that has also mired several Bollywood bigwigs such as Ranbir Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Huma Qureshi, Kapil Sharma, and Hina Khan.

Before this, Badshah was also grilled by Mumbai police in 2020 in connection with a probe into a racket that creates and sells fake social media followers and ‘likes’. At the time, he was questioned by the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU).