The Hyderabad city civil court on Monday posted the hearing of the case relating to the filing of suit by former Indian cricket captain Mohd.Azharuddin against the BCCI, its President AC Muthiah and former CBI joint director K Madhavan, to March 7.

Accepting the counter affidavits filed by the BCCI President and BCCI's enquiry commissioner Madhavan, the second additional chief Judge J Shyamsundar Rao posted the hearing on the case following a plea by Azharuddin's counsel SK Sarma.

The former captain has challenged the imposition of a life ban on him in connection with the match-fixing scandal and filed a suit in the lower civil court here last month, naming the BCCI, Muthiah and Madhavan as respondents and questioned their action against him.

While the BCCI has already filed the counter affidavit on February 14, Muthiah and Madhavan filed their counter affidavits separately through advocates today refuting all the charges made against them by Azharuddin.

Advocate K.Suryanarayana, who filed a counter affidavit on behalf of Muthiah, justified the grounds on which Azharuddin was removed from the team and imposed with a life ban and said "the suit filed by the former captain was not maintainable in the first place."

In a point by point rebuttal, Suryanarayana described some of the specific charges made against Muthiah as "uncharitable and uncalled for." Referring to the charge that Muthiah being an industrialist had no experience or knowledge of the game, he said that in the past, many BCCI presidents were also from non-cricketing fields but proved 'quite successful' in the task assigned to them.

He said Azharuddin, prima facie has no right to ask the court at this stage to exercise its inherent powers under section 151 of civil procedure code and quash the life ban imposed by BCCI on him. Another advocate Sanjay Joshi, who filed the affidavit on behalf of Madhavan, said the enquiry conducted by his client against Azharuddin was 'fair and impartial' and denied charges made against him (Madhavan).

© PTI