Mumbai: Rapper Badshah was questioned by the Maharashtra Police’s Cyber Cell on Monday (October 30) for his alleged role in promoting an online betting app that illegally streamed the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket matches. The app, named FairPlay, is a subsidiary of the Mahadev app, which is currently under probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for money laundering charges.
Badshah is among the 40 Bollywood celebrities who have been accused of endorsing FairPlay, which violated the digital rights of Viacom 18 network, the official broadcaster of IPL 2023. Viacom 18 had won the bid for the digital rights of IPL from 2023 to 2027 for Rs 20,500 crore. However, FairPlay was parallelly screening the cricket tournament from March 2023 to May 2023 without any permission or license.
Viacom 18 had filed an FIR against Badshah and other actors, including Sanjay Dutt, Ranbir Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Huma Qureshi, Kapil Sharma, and Hina Khan, for promoting the viewing of IPL matches on FairPlay. A case of digital piracy has been registered against the app and its promoters.
Sources within the cyber cell confirmed that Badshah was summoned for questioning as he was the brand ambassador of FairPlay. He announced his association with the app in early 2023. The cyber cell officials said that more celebrities could be summoned in connection with the case.
This is not the first time that Badshah has landed in trouble with the law. In 2020, he was grilled by Mumbai police in a case related to a racket that creates and sells fake social media followers and ‘likes’. He was questioned by the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) at that time.
