BCCI files reply to Jadeja's petition

The Board of Control for Cricket in India filed its reply before an arbitrator, in Delhi on Saturday, to a petition by cricketer Ajay Jadeja, challenging the five-year ban imposed on him over match-fixing allegations.

BCCI counsel Radha Rangarajan filed the board's reply before Justice J K Mehra, the arbitrator appointed by the Delhi high court, at the latter's residence.

Rangaswamy said "the arbitrator set November 16 as the date for the petitioner to file his rejoinder".

On the contents of the reply, she said: "We have rebutted whatever Jadeja has pleaded in his petition, which has issues almost identical to those as were raised before the court."

The high court had, on November 1, referred the matter to the "sole arbitrator" after the parties agreed to settle the issue through arbitration and withdrew their cases.

The court also directed the arbitrator to make every effort to dispose of the case within two months.

Jadeja's counsel P P Malhotra had said that the cricketer agreed to refer the matter for arbitration because "for the past two years due to procedural problems there was not much progress in the case".

The high court, while referring the matter to the arbitrator, had made it clear that the order passed in the "special circumstances" of the case would not be treated as a precedent in any other case of whatsoever nature.

Jadeja has challenged the ban on the ground that it was based on BCCI's investigator K Madhavan's findings on allegations of match-fixing, which in turn were "entirely based" on the CBI report.

Mail Cricket Editor