AZHAR TO CHALLANGE LIFE BAN

Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin will soon challenge in Andhra Pradesh High Court the life ban imposed on him by the Indian cricket board for his alleged involvement in the match-fixing scandal.

"The writ petition in this regard seeking quashing of the life ban imposed on Azharuddin has been finalised and would soon be filed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court," senior advocate H R Bharadwaj said on Thursday.

The main ground to be taken before the High Court in the petition would be questioning the legal value of the CBI report, he said.

"CBI followed no established procedure while conducting the probe," Bharadwaj said adding "The CBI report on betting and match-fixing was neither an investigation nor a proper inquiry."

When told that the BCCI decision was handed down after the Madhavan endorsed the findings of the CBI report, the advocate said "Madhavan was nobody to conduct the inquiry. He had no jurisdiction to take up such a probe."

"It is only the Board of Control for Cricket in India which is authorised to conduct the probe," he said adding "hence the punishment given to Azharuddin is illegal."

The former skipper was banned for life by the Board after Madhavan, who heard him after CBI submitted its report indicting him, agreed with the allegations levelled against the player by the investigating agency.

Earlier, CBI had said it did not rule out prosecution of Azharuddin and former Test player 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".

"We are gathering more evidence against these two players and are waiting for more inputs from Income Tax authorities," a top official of CBI had said adding "at some stage we may call them for further questioning, though not for the time being."

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