If such a case could be registered against Hansie Cronje, it could be done against the Indian players as well, the police officials said during a meeting with sports minister Uma Bharti on Wednesday.

The meeting was also attended by officials from CBI, Enforcement Directorate, Central Board for Direct Taxation, Ministries of Home Affairs, External Affairs and Law and Justice, sports ministry sources said on Thursday.

The Police officials pointed out that they had registered a cheating case against players Cronje, Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje, Pieter Strydom and Henry Williams and Krishan Kumar, London-based NRI Sanjeev Chawla and Rajesh Kalra on the basis of the taped conversations, the sources said.

The police officials wondered as to why the same could not be done against the Indian players looking at the evidence, they said.

Meanwhile, CBI has said that it did not rule out prosecution of former skipper Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Sharma under Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) for allegedly receiving huge sums of money from bookies in match-fixing as they were "public servants".

CBI had referred its probe report to former Supreme Court judge Justice M K Mukherjee and Solicitor General Harish Salve to get their expert legal opinion on "whether the facts disclosed in the inquiry are sufficient to institute a case for any criminal offence."

Though Justice Mukherjee ruled out a case of cheating against the players, on Azharuddin and Sharma, he said, "The two players may be said to have committed offences under section 13(1(d)(i) of Prevention of Corruption Act".

Union Law Ministry has also said that Azharuddin and Sharma could be prosecuted under Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) but said the prosecution "should be initiated only when there is evidence beyond doubt".

Giving its opinion on the CBI report on match-fixing and betting to the sports ministry, the Law Ministry has said that to initiate prosecution of these two players, who work in government undertakings, under PCA "there needs to be evidence and the measure of evidence will be evidence beyond doubt".

The Law Ministry has also said that "the offences of cheating may not be made out on the reading of the report and the requirements of the Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code." Azharuddin is chief manager and PRO with public sector State Bank of India while Sharma is employed with the Central Warehousing Corporation.