The Madras High Court on Tuesday (September 1, 2026) directed its Registry to number three applications filed by retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer G. Sampath Kumar to video record the evidence of cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni in a ₹100-crore defamation suit filed by him in 2014 against the former police officer and a few others for dragging his name in the 2013 IPL betting scam.

Justice K. Govindarajan Thilakavadi issued the direction after the three applications were listed before her by the Registry for deciding their maintainability. The applicant’s counsel contended the three prayers sought for by his client were maintainable in view of a Supreme Court order in a similar case. After perusing the order, the judge was convinced such applications could be filed.

She made it clear Mr. Dhoni would be given an opportunity to file his counter affidavit after the applications get numbered. In the first application, Mr. Kumar urged the court to appoint a judicial officer to monitor the recording of the evidence of the cricketer by a court-appointed advocate commissioner. In the second application, he insisted upon video recording of the entire proceedings.

The applicant insisted an unedited and certified copies of the video recording must be issued to him as well as the judicial officer to be appointed by the court. Thirdly, he wanted the recording of evidence to take place in a court premises or any government building.“ Just because he is a cricketer, the evidence should not be recorded in a five star hotel or some private bungalow,” the applicant’s counsel said.

On August 11, 2025 Justice C.V. Karthikeyan had ordered commencement of trial in the 2014 civil suit by appointing advocate G. Jayasri as a court appointed commissioner to record the evidence of Mr. Dhoni. Though Mr. Kumar had challenged that order, a Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and Mohammed Shaffiq dismissed the appeal on November 4, 2025.

Then, the Division Bench observed that insisting upon the presence of the cricketer before the Master’s Court, located inside the High Court campus, for the purpose of recording his evidence would require elaborate security arrangements to be made and hence there was nothing wrong on the part of the single judge in having appointed an advocate commissioner to record his evidence elsewhere.

Apart from the IPS officer, Mr. Dhoni had filed the suit against Zee Media Corporation, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary and News Nation Network Private Limited.